When: Sunday 5-12-2024
Where: O’Hare International Airport, American Airlines
Items Lost and/or stolen:
1. Remarkable 2, The paper Tablet
2. Marker Plus w/ Tablet
3. Remarkable 2 folio case
On 5-11-2024, I flew American Airline from North Carolina to Chicago Ohara International airport. The plane sat right off the runway for about an hour, the plane had no gate to park. Most of the passengers missed their connecting flight. I missed my connection to Portland OR by minutes. I was rebooked for a flight for the next day to Portland via Dallas Tx On Sunday 5-12-2024 at 2:40pm. When boarding the plane, we had to check in our carry-on bag because it was full (I had my work laptop and new Remarkable 2 tablet in my carry-on). We started to taxi out to the runway, then stopped. After about 40 minutes, the pilot came on the speaker and said there would be a delay of about ½ hour to an hour. He then came on to the speaker and said that they were now saying it would be 1-3 hours and he had decided to deplane. The flight was then cancelled. I could not get my carry-on, because it would be going to Dallas and then Portland once a flight went out. I was able to book another flight to Portland 6 hours later. When I landed, I was able to get my check in bag, it had arrived the day before, but the carry-on that I did not want to check in was not there. It would be there in about an hour. So, I waited. By this time, I had spent about 2days or about 30 hours in the airports (they did give me a $12.00 food voucher- you cannot even get a sandwich for that price). I was so exhausted I grabbed my baggage when it got there, and we drove another hour to Salem. By this time, I had been travelling and in airports since Saturday morning at 9:00am and it was now after Midnight Sunday night /Monday morning. I was able to get home about 2:30am.
I slept for a couple of hours and when I opened my carry-on the laptop was in there, but the tablet was gone. I had just bought it just over a month ago and all together had spent $444.99.
I have tried filing a claim, you cannot do that w/o filing a missing baggage report. My bag is not missing. My tablet is. You cannot file a claim w/o original receipt within 24 hours. There is no one to whom you can talk. No one to help you. The one gal I managed to get ahold of was customer service but not for complaints or baggage problems. Her comment to me was “there are over 44 million customers a day with problems, you think we want talk to all of them”. That is what American Airlines thinks of their customers.
I knew my tablet was in the bag when they made me check my bag. They should be held liable. For as long as they held onto the luggage, anyone could have opened it up and took it. I am hoping I am wrong, and it is in the airport somewhere. Chicago, Portland, or Dallas. I feel like I will never see it again.
I know this, I will never fly AA again. They have terrible service, there planes are not in very good shape, just an all-around bad experience. I heard a lot of passengers complain about the airline. No one had anything good to say about them.
How many people has this happened to? Can they just get away with stealing and ripping people off? Making people’s lives miserable by having one of the most unorganized people and baggage and fight handling systems in the world.
Is there a chance a class action lawsuit could be filed? I am sorry I cannot just let them take $500 from me; I work too hard for my money. I feel like they have robbed me.

My boyfriend literally just got to chicago for a work trip and he took a taxi from the airport to his job site. When he got out he went to the trunk to get his stuff, tried to open it and signaled to the driver that it won’t open, and the dude just drove off with his stuff. What can he do to get his stuff back? Is there any chance of him seeing his belongings again?
(he paid in cash, didn’t get a receipt and he doesn’t know the cab number so there’s literally like no record of anything)
Update: So far, nobody can help him. He got in contact with the taxi company and since he doesn’t know the cab number they can’t help him. They gave him the lost and found number in case anything of his is found. He also called the police just in case he could file a report, they said it’s not considered theft. He called the neighboring businesses to see if their cameras picked anything up, but they got nothing.
Update 2: He called the taxi company again and he got someone else who was actually super helpful. The guy on the phone sent out like a mass message to the cab drivers i guess and is trying to get his stuff back and is keeping an eye on the lost and found. So that’s giving us some hope. i just feel so bad for him because literally all of his belongings are just gone and he’s never been to chicago before and he’s all alone.
Final Update!! So basically my boyfriend became a detective and got his bags back since nobody was helping him. He found cameras that might’ve caught something that just so happened to be owned by the same parent company as his job. The taxi lost and found kept sending out the global messages to find his bags and my boyfriend finally got a screenshot of the cab number. The driver ended up driving back to headquarters with his stuff (but then tried to charge him $60 for bringing it back). My boyfriend refused and the driver just gave his stuff back without issue after that. By this point his company already booked him a flight back to Ohio since everyone thought he wouldn’t get his stuff back and he’s home now. And bless his sweet soul he still got a days worth of work done in between all these phone calls he had to make.

Shipping to Canada and US only! Shipping FROM Canada Plus $10 to Canada. Shipping to US depends on the item. I will send buyer a photo of package and tracking receipt. I am not responsible for package once it’s shipped.
PAYPAL INVOICE ONLY
ANYONE FLAKING ON A INVOICE WILL BE REPORTED TO THE MODS‼️
AUTHENTIC:
Vetements All Over Print denim jacket Size Large Rare. Used lightly with the tag somewhere (have to find it). Retailed for almost 3K cad ($2,000 USD). Made in Italy. Sold out on Cettire (see photos) And one listed on Grailed for much more! ) Grailed authenticated! $600 https://imgur.com/gallery/EUgK3Qb
REPS:
Celine windbreaker (brand new with tags) $80 Size 50 Chest: 25” Length: 28” https://imgur.com/gallery/iSdkPBY
Cartier Love Bracelet with Premium box $150 SIZE 17 Comes with “authenticity cert/Cartier bag/matching screwdriver. Weight feels like gen. Beautiful colour. No cheesy yellow. Colour is gen like! These photos were taken at daylight. Never worn. Just tried on.
https://imgur.com/gallery/5tXs2SE
Cartier Love bracelet (narrow) with box $100 Comes with authenticity cert/carrier bag/matching screwdriver. Weight and colour like gen. Never worn. Just tried on
Timestamped: https://imgur.com/gallery/QhMCVwa
Group 1 Reps: https://imgur.com/gallery/AwWDo5x
Balenciaga Taxi quilted leather jacket (never worn. $175 Size 50 chest: 25” length: 25”
Balenciaga windbreaker (wore once) $60 Chest: 26” Length: 29”
Balenciaga Campaign sweatpants (never worn) $80 Size M
Balenciaga sweatpants (mint. wore once) $75 Size M https://imgur.com/gallery/v4akAbz
Balenciaga blk slime heavy hoodie - (wore once -Puer Homme) $80 Chest: 26” Length: 25”
Balenciaga 1st Speedhunters tee (wore once) $55 Size: M Chest: 21” Length: 30”
‼️SOLD & SHIPPED‼️ Balenciaga 2nd Speedhunters tee (wore a few times Size: L Chest: 24” Length: 29.5
‼️SOLD & SHIPPED‼️ Bottega Veneta green leather weaved bracelet gold plated Tip to tip is 21cm
Gucci snake green belt (never worn) $40 Length: 115cm
Gucci bootleg red sweatshirt $80 Chest: 24” Length: 27”
‼️SOLD & SHIPPED‼️ Hermes’ black cardholder (used once)
GROUP 2 Reps https://imgur.com/gallery/5Bku46w
Jil Sander off white boxy tee 1:1 (never worn) $60 Size: M Chest: 25” Length: 27”
No brand “Juun.j” bomber jacket with hood 1:1 from Carry Over Seoul (wore a couple of times- ) $170 Chest:25” Length: 25”
Moncler red beanie (never worn) $40 Scans on Moncler authentication site
Prada America blk sneaker (wore once) $100 Size: US 7/EU 40
Unbranded “SLP” Teddy 1:1 (wore twice - Zuca Space) $200 Size 48 Chest: 25” Length: 25”
AUTHENTICS: https://imgur.com/gallery/8fcpO5n
https://imgur.com/gallery/aRoyrt4
Versace ring size 21 Used once. Comes with box/authentication cert. I bought for $335. $180 https://imgur.com/gallery/dq2qHR8
Gucci ace sneakers (Grailed authenticated. wore a couple of times. Bought for $875) $270 Says size 6 but they run larger so it’s a US 7 mens as that’s my usual size
Heron Preston Ex Ray black jacket. (grailed authenticated. Bought for $875) $450
LV cigarette case (authenticated on grailed. Mint) $200
Maison Margiela 4 stitch carry on phone pouch (Grailed authenticated. new. Bought it for $300) $230
Opening Ceremony bucket hat (new. Bought it for $150) $100
Moncler puff jacket (authenticated on grailed. Some flaws. See photos) $220
Prada Nastro green/black striped. (grailed authenticated. never worn. Comes with original box/dustbag. Bought for $410) $250 Size 85cm/34 inches
Saint Laurent x Hedi Slimane hitop sneakers (grailed authenticated. wore a few time. Mint. Bought new for $600) $250 Size EU 40/US 7
Saint Laurent x Hedi slimane sneakers (Grailed authenticated. wore a few times. Bought it for $695) $200 Size EU 40/US 7
Norse Project Algot blue shirt (new. Bought at $168) $100 Chest 25” length 31”
Palm Angels slides (grailed authenticated. Brand new never worn. Comes with authenticity card/box/dustbag. Made in Spain. Bought it for $380) Size men’s EU 40 (women’s US 9) or men’s US 7 $240

Shipping to Canada and US only! Shipping FROM Canada Plus $10 to Canada. Shipping to US depends on the item. I will send buyer a photo of package and tracking receipt. I am not responsible for package once it’s shipped.
PAYPAL INVOICE ONLY
ANYONE FLAKING ON A INVOICE WILL BE REPORTED TO THE MODS‼️
AUTHENTIC:
Vetements All Over Print denim jacket Size Large Rare. Used lightly with the tag somewhere (have to find it). Retailed for almost 3K cad ($2,000 USD). Made in Italy. Sold out on Cettire (see photos) And one listed on Grailed for much more! ) Grailed authenticated! $600 https://imgur.com/gallery/EUgK3Qb
REPS:
Celine windbreaker (brand new with tags) $80 Size 50 Chest: 25” Length: 28” https://imgur.com/gallery/iSdkPBY
Cartier Love Bracelet with Premium box $150 SIZE 17 Comes with “authenticity cert/Cartier bag/matching screwdriver. Weight feels like gen. Beautiful colour. No cheesy yellow. Colour is gen like! These photos were taken at daylight. Never worn. Just tried on.
https://imgur.com/gallery/5tXs2SE
Cartier Love bracelet (narrow) with box $100 Comes with authenticity cert/carrier bag/matching screwdriver. Weight and colour like gen. Never worn. Just tried on
Timestamped: https://imgur.com/gallery/QhMCVwa
Group 1 Reps: https://imgur.com/gallery/AwWDo5x
Balenciaga Taxi quilted leather jacket (never worn. $175 Size 50 chest: 25” length: 25”
Balenciaga windbreaker (wore once) $60 Chest: 26” Length: 29”
Balenciaga Campaign sweatpants (never worn) $80 Size M
Balenciaga sweatpants (mint. wore once) $75 Size M https://imgur.com/gallery/v4akAbz
Balenciaga blk slime heavy hoodie - (wore once -Puer Homme) $80 Chest: 26” Length: 25”
Balenciaga 1st Speedhunters tee (wore once) $55 Size: M Chest: 21” Length: 30”
‼️SOLD & SHIPPED‼️ Balenciaga 2nd Speedhunters tee (wore a few times Size: L Chest: 24” Length: 29.5
‼️SOLD & SHIPPED‼️ Bottega Veneta green leather weaved bracelet gold plated Tip to tip is 21cm
Gucci snake green belt (never worn) $40 Length: 115cm
Gucci bootleg red sweatshirt $80 Chest: 24” Length: 27”
‼️SOLD & SHIPPED‼️ Hermes’ black cardholder (used once)
GROUP 2 Reps https://imgur.com/gallery/5Bku46w
Jil Sander off white boxy tee 1:1 (never worn) $60 Size: M Chest: 25” Length: 27”
No brand “Juun.j” bomber jacket with hood 1:1 from Carry Over Seoul (wore a couple of times- ) $170 Chest:25” Length: 25”
Moncler red beanie (never worn) $40 Scans on Moncler authentication site
Prada America blk sneaker (wore once) $100 Size: US 7/EU 40
Unbranded “SLP” Teddy 1:1 (wore twice - Zuca Space) $200 Size 48 Chest: 25” Length: 25”
AUTHENTICS: https://imgur.com/gallery/8fcpO5n
https://imgur.com/gallery/aRoyrt4
Versace ring size 21 Used once. Comes with box/authentication cert. I bought for $335. $180 https://imgur.com/gallery/dq2qHR8
Gucci ace sneakers (Grailed authenticated. wore a couple of times. Bought for $875) $270 Says size 6 but they run larger so it’s a US 7 mens as that’s my usual size
Heron Preston Ex Ray black jacket. (grailed authenticated. Bought for $875) $450
LV cigarette case (authenticated on grailed. Mint) $200
Maison Margiela 4 stitch carry on phone pouch (Grailed authenticated. new. Bought it for $300) $230
Opening Ceremony bucket hat (new. Bought it for $150) $100
Moncler puff jacket (authenticated on grailed. Some flaws. See photos) $220
Prada Nastro green/black striped. (grailed authenticated. never worn. Comes with original box/dustbag. Bought for $410) $250 Size 85cm/34 inches
Saint Laurent x Hedi Slimane hitop sneakers (grailed authenticated. wore a few time. Mint. Bought new for $600) $250 Size EU 40/US 7
Saint Laurent x Hedi slimane sneakers (Grailed authenticated. wore a few times. Bought it for $695) $200 Size EU 40/US 7
Norse Project Algot blue shirt (new. Bought at $168) $100 Chest 25” length 31”
Palm Angels slides (grailed authenticated. Brand new never worn. Comes with authenticity card/box/dustbag. Made in Spain. Bought it for $380) Size men’s EU 40 (women’s US 9) or men’s US 7 $240

I just left a message on my long-separated wife’s phone; I simply asked her, how many times over the past nearly 40 years, have you cheated on me. I hung up and now I’m sitting here waiting for her return call, claiming I’m crazy, and that she’s has never cheated on me.
I was here reading cheating wife stories on Redditt when an interesting story was written and caught my attention, it took my mind to an experience we had in our lives together. The story was based on a husband finding out his wife was diagnosed with chlamydia. The story stated that it was a sexually transmitted disease. The man divorced his wife by that evidence alone.
Chlamydia, according to all my quick research after the reading of this story, confirmed my worst fears. The only methods of being infected by this disease was by oral, anal, vaginal sex or it could have been dormant for a couple years. Well, she contracted it and told me 3 months after being married. The dormant part was still not a reason as we had been living together for 4 years prior to our wedding. I was the fool to believe all these years that she contracted it using the jacuzzi at the hotel she stayed at 2 months after our wedding. This was a training seminar for a new program for her travel agency. The trip took her away from home for a week. The dumbass unintellectual man I was, took her word as truth. No matter the outcome there will be no divorce, just understanding that I now know the truth is enough for me. We have been separated for the past 7 years, but due to her health issues I still maintain a good relationship, I do her shopping, her taxi services, and make sure she sets up all her Dr. appointments. None of this will change, I just want the truth, were there more than just the one. As I’m sitting here my mind is racing through other times that were suspicious. I’m sure all these thoughts were common amongst other betrayed spouses, both men and women alike. This alone was counterproductive, and useless in my case. But there’s no way to keep my thoughts from seeking answers and clarity.
If it hadn’t been a 7-year separation, then it most likely would have ended in divorce. But our lives now are content, I’m satisfied just being me. We have been together since 1985 and married in 1989, bought two homes, traveled intensely, but never had children. We grew apart as she enjoyed the bottle in excess, I felt disrespect from her by not even trying to understand my views. I moved out to keep from hurting her or myself due to the frustrations and pure lack of passion towards her any longer. We’re both in our 60’s and have no plans to remarry anyone from either side. She has been a part of my family due to her 38 plus years of holiday events, we have bonds well beyond our marriage. She is now alone and so I have become her only true friend, and I take her health more seriously than she does most times. That’s where our current relationship stands. I will wait for her call for the next 5 hours, or longer, until she gets out of bed at 6 to 7 pm. This was another very large part of our separation, she was a night owl, me a morning person. I would be getting up and she would be going to bed at the same time, what a life we had together.
Update
Here it is 9:54pm, I’m still waiting for a call, or any other type of response from her. But the phone hasn’t changed from its sleep mode. This whole time between the realization of her infidelity and the current time sitting in anticipation of her response from my message. All my mind did was think of any other possible reasons that she could explain. As the time clicks on the digital clock blips by the minute, the phone remains silent. The mindset that I am experiencing is somewhat unexplainable. I’m upset that the truth is finally coming out. But then again, I really don’t even care. Why then do I feel like I need more information, but in truth all I really do need to know is that it’s true. I’m not mad or even revengeful, hell I’m old and just satisfied just to be me. The worst part of waiting for this call is the constant looking at the clock as the minutes tick away. Minute after minute I’ve been dreading the talk or the lies or even the whys. I’ve started to wonder when she’ll actually call, if she even calls at all. If there isn’t a call tonight, I will just leave her another message tomorrow, no need to rush this now, damn it’s already been 35 years. But for now, we wait…
Update
10:36pm when she finally called, I asked her before she said anything. Well, as I waited for her response silently, she finally replied I’ve never cheated on you ever. I responded with “are you sitting on the couch, like she normally does, she replied with yes. I said look to the right and look at our wedding picture. I then said you cheated on me within two months of that picture. I then explained how her medical issues were the result of three and only three ways of contracting them, oral, anal or vaginal. I then told her I had done my research, and if she can find another way this could be contracted then go ahead prove me wrong. I continued with if she gave it to me, which I had surgery for, who did she get it from questionably. She started to protest, as I hung up the phone. A voice mail arrived 3 minutes after the call. I’m holding off listening to it for now. Depending on where I’m at after all my drinks sink into my system…
It’s me again, sorry for my echoes but, we’ve lived apart for 7 years. Life is okay for us, and this won’t change how I care for her. Life will go on the same, but her gaining my trust back, can I or had I or do I still trust her. I don’t know, as many people have been here, I have felt feelings here that are just as unpredictable as the discovery of the act of infidelity itself. The one thing I thought about after leaving her on that call, her saying repeatedly that it happened a long time ago, even though I had already told her she cheated two months after our wedding. Why was she emphasizing a long time ago, was the true question, as I thought with a few drinks induced into my system. I have set myself some strict drinking rules and tonight I must have broken them all.
Update
It’s now 11:44pm, I have still only received the one and only voicemail from her, I have yet to listen to it so far. My buzz has taken over and I’m a happy soul now. My dog is now cuddling at my feet, I’m sure more for a scratch or a treat than sympathy towards me. Who cares, she’ll get a pig’s ear tonight just for her unconditional love. Normally she only gets one a month but tonight’s different. To be honest I’m struggling to listen to her message but, I know there will be more but, I want the whole story, not just one piece at a time delt to me. Sorry for the oddness of this issue, but I’m living it in real time and I’m just trying to express my feelings the best I can. I don’t care if it happened, I really don’t care if it even happened again. It really doesn’t matter to me, I just want to know the truth, period. I think I deserve at least that after 35 years of marriage. Okay the beers and shots have now taken over my fingers and I’ll stop for the night as I can barely see the screen clearly. I will not listen to her voice mail until I can read between the lines, so with that I bid you all a good night.
Update
I went to sleep at around 2:30 am and fell asleep quickly due to my drinking. 6:30 is when the alcohol wore off enough for reality to regain strength in my head. I laid in bed without any desire to move forward with my day. I finally rose from the bed and moved onto the living room couch just to continue my pondering. At 10 am I finally listened to her message, to my surprise it was only 16 seconds long.
“I’ve always been true to you since the day I met you, always, always”.
I returned a call to her answering machine after listening to her voice mail.
Please explain to me and the medical world, how you contracted a disease that can only be transmitted by sex. The doctors would love to know, all I’m looking for is the truth.
I then hung up the call. It will be another 7 to 8 hours before she even sees the message, so I’ll have to wait for her response. Knowing her she’ll never admit to it, which is just a shame. I was shocked to not get any further calls from her after her voice mail. But to her I guess silence is golden. It still did not address the issue; all she needs to do is find any article that states other avenues for the conception of a STD. Time will tell, but most likely she will remain indifferent and never say what needs to be said.
I understand I write a lot on this site about cheaters, but it’s all in my imagination. This on the other hand is real. I have receipts from her surgery that cost us 5 grand to have the vaginal warts removed. I also had to endure the procedure to have some lasered off my manhood both internally and externally. These are facts not speculations, our lives were turned upside down during this period.
From the beginning I have said I have no ill will and nothing in our lives will change. I am more interested in the truth rather than revenge or retaliation.
If anyone out there that is reading this has any reasonable reason that she didn’t cheat, please tell me and I’ll give her the benefit of the doubt. But from my research it could only be the saddest of outcomes for me. Any advice or thoughts could bring me some support as to how my mind is raging. Life will go on either way, but for now there are more suspicions than clarities. Thank you for listening or reading, I’m really looking for help to understand the depth of my situation.

There's quite a few cases like this. I remember seeing the one i have in mind on youtube but forgot to sign in and save the video on my account and lost it in my mobile phone's history.
Basically the gist of the case is that the man and his wife were last seen in a shopping mall together. But later his wife went missing, and the husband claimed she had driven in her car away from their house without telling him where she went late at night. The car was caught leaving on a neigbbor's camera but there was no clear shot of who the driver was.
Later the car was find in a multistory parking lot. Through surveillance footage , however, it turned out the husband was driver and had paid a taxi driver to drive him back home, where he had cleaned up the evidence of the murder, but not well enough and the police figured it out. He had found his wife cheating and killed her in rage. Another surveillance footage caught him wearing the same clothing he used to park her car when buying stuff from a gas station, further corroborated by the receipt of his purchases being later found in his own car ( his wife and himself each had their own car ).
That's all i remember.

Buongiorno,
I will be travelling to Italy soon, and need some advice on Taxi's please...
For the most part we will be travelling on trains, but we will need to get taxi's to and from our hotels to the airport (landing in Milan and flying out of Venice).
I believe that Uber does operate in Italy (?) but are there other better (and preferably more cost effective) Taxi Apps or Companies you would recommend? If not an app, can you advise as to whether Taxi's accept credit cards and provide receipts (I am travelling for work as well as vacation, so would claim back the work related trips).
Grazie mille!

Ok buckle up because this is a long one. TL-DR: my rental car was towed in Mexico and the number of hoops I jumped through was unbelievable.
My (60f) siblings (56f, 48m) took our mom (83f) on our first ever trip with just the four of us. We flew into San Diego, rented a car there, and drove over the border into Mexico (we had Mexican insurance and written permission from the rental agency to drive the car across the border). We stayed in Rosarito, which is less than 30 minutes from Tijuana. None of us speak more than the bare minimum of Spanish, which definitely comes into play in the story below. Thank God for Google Translate.
We got there on a Sunday, and on Wednesday we took a guided tour in Tijuana. We parked on a side street at 10am that was full of other cars - I got the last spot. There was no signage indicating no parking and the curb was not red. I asked our tour guide if she thought it was ok to park there, and she said yes. When we returned at 6pm our car was gone, as were all the other cars that had been parked by us. There were two police officers standing in the street watching over a man with a bucket of red paint who was painting the curb as fast as he could. His arms were a friggin blur. Our guide spoke with one of the police officers, who was aggressively chewing his gum and just looked belligerent overall. He finally let her know the possible name of the towing company. She drove all of us to the impound lot, and they told us we needed to go to the police department, pay the ticket, and return with a paid receipt. We went to the police department, and the business area was already closed for the day. Bless our tour guide’s heart, she really went over and above her job description. Her boyfriend found a local car rental that was still open, she drove us there, and we rented a second car so we could get back to Rosarito.
The next morning, Thursday, my brother and I went back to the police department and paid the ticket. We took the receipt showing payment along with a document from the police department stating my fine was paid in full. We returned to the towing company, and this time they told us we needed to pay the towing charge at the Palacio Municipal (City Hall), and when we brought back proof of payment they would release the car to me. The guy we were Google Translate-talking to also asked for a copy of my drivers license, but they did not have a copy machine on the premises. He said there was a business across the street where we could get photocopies, but when my brother went there it was closed, apparently permanently, and it looked like it had been for a while. Using a bunch of sign language and gesturing, he sent us to another store a few blocks away where we finally got a photocopy. After that we went to the Drags department at City Hall, and I was told because it was a rental car they would only release the car to the owner along with the original car registration. At this point I called the car rental agency because I could tell this was not going to be quick resolution. The owner of the company, I'll call him Juan, speaks Spanish, and he said if I could find someone he could talk to maybe he could help figure out what all was needed. The guy in the Drags department was NOT willing to talk, and I was starting to feel a little desperate at this point. I went down to the main Information booth and asked a woman working there if there was anyone I could talk to about my situation. She took me to a different department in City Hall, and a man there was willing to talk to Juan. After they talked, Juan told me I needed to come back to San Diego and get some supporting documents from him. My brother drove me to the border crossing, where I found a 3 hour line to get back to the States. I have Global Entry, but of course didn't bring my card because no one else in my family has it. I walked to the front anyway with my passport and asked if they could scan my face if I had my global entry number. The border crossing guard basically rolled his eyes but still let me cross. I took mass transit to the car rental, and Juan signed and had notarized a document authorizing me as a legal representative of the company to pay for and recover the car. We had also been told any documents in English needed to be translated into Spanish. By this time it was too late to get the documents translated, so after I got back to Tijuana my brother and I returned to Rosarito for the night.
On Friday my sister and I went back to Tijuana. We found an official translator for the documents and were told it would take 2 hours. While the documents were being translated we drove back to Rosarito and picked up our brother, mother and luggage in time to check out of our Airbnb by 11am. We drove back to Tijuana, picked up the translated documents and went back to City Hall where we presented the Drags department with the paid ticket and both the original and translated documents showing I was a legal representative of the car rental agency. I was THEN told the translated document needed to be notarized by someone at the US Consulate. So we all headed to the Consulate and found out that not only did I need an appointment, but they were closed that day due to training. If I did need to get something notarized, the next available appointment was in two months. At this point I had a mini breakdown and cried. The guard conferred with someone inside the Consulate and gave me an email address of the department that handles towed vehicles. I was to take photos of all the documents, attach them to the email, and explain what happened. He also told me that it wasn't a notary I needed; what I actually needed was a letter from the Consulate stating the car was not stolen property. By now it was 12:30pm so we decided that I would drop my family off at the San Diego Airport to catch their flight home, and I would take a later flight. After I dropped them off, I drove back to Tijuana to return the car I had rented in Mexico. Of course the rental agency was closed. Fortunately I found a number on their website and a really nice guy on the phone said he'd send his partner over to meet me. I walked back to the border, and again the line was 3 hours long to walk across. Again a very nice border crossing guard let me through in the Global Entry line. I spent the night in San Diego and flew home the next day, which was Saturday.
On Monday, I called the US Consulate to determine what else I needed to get the car released to me. The person I spoke to advised me that sending an email was the only process. I should have an answer within 48 to 72 hours, which meant I should have an answer that Wednesday.
On Wednesday night I followed up on the email saying that I had not received a response and wanted to ensure that the email had not been missed.
On Thursday I received a response from the US Consulate. They said that the Mexican authorities hadn’t notified them about the seized vehicle, but if I had the documents ready I could come to their office, Monday thru Friday, from 8:00am to 11:00am. I booked a flight to San Diego for that night. With my Global Entry card.
The next morning, Friday, while still in San Diego, I made calls to several Tijuana car rental agencies and was not able to find an available car for that day. I walked across the border to Tijuana with the intent of using Uber once I got there. My cell phone service is with Verizon, and I could NOT get a signal. I didn't realize Verizon was a problem because my brother had done all the phone stuff before and he has AT&T. I finally bailed on getting an Uber and flagged down a taxi driving by to take me to the US Consulate. I didn't know getting in that they only take cash, so I was lucky I had some cash on me. By the time I arrived it was 9:30am. I had a bit of a panic attack when I saw several hundred people waiting in line, but there is a separate line for US citizens and no one else was waiting ahead of me. When I went through security I found out that cell phones are not allowed in the Consulate, and since I didn't have a car I didn't have anywhere to leave it. Fortunately, the same guard that helped me when I was there earlier was there again, and he was willing to hold my phone. At 10:30am I was called up and presented all my documents to the man behind the window. After I explained my situation, he said he would make some calls. When he came back, he told me that being a representative of the car rental agency was not the way it should have been done, but the Mexican authorities were going to allow it. After paying the fee for the letter stating the car wasn't stolen, he made a packet of the documents, topped by the notarized letter from the Consulate. He told me to take it back to City Hall to pay the towing fee, and after the car was released to me by the towing company I would need to immediately return to San Diego. He also advised me to tell the border crossing guard that the car should be inspected before crossing as it had been out of my possession. I returned to the Drags department at City Hall and got the document to take down to the cashier so that I could pay the towing fee. The cashier told me I needed copies of the documents, because he needed to keep some and the towing company would need to keep some. He also told me that I needed to return to the police department to get a final paper from them releasing the vehicle. After paying the fee, I located a photocopy center and made LOTS of copies of everything. I went back to the police department, and they gave me the final letter that I needed. By now it was 2:30pm, and the towing company business office closed at 4:00pm. I hoofed it to the impound lot, it was only six blocks away, and after reviewing my documentation they released the car to me. I drove the car to the border, where I told the border guard that the car should be inspected and why. He sent me to the secondary inspection area, and after inspections by both a US Customs guard and a dog, I was allowed to cross the border back to the United States.
Final thoughts: a) I still don't know what the Mexican authorities thought I could give them. The car registration had the name of the rental agency, not the company owner’s name, and their stipulation was that the owner had to be listed on the registration. b) I had people ask me later why I didn't film the man painting the curb. I was in a different country, and if you saw the cop I'd be willing to bet you'd make the same decision. The US Customs guard who did my car inspection said it's definitely a deal made between towing companies and police officers. c) I will say that throughout the entire process, I never felt that anyone was trying to be less than helpful, except maybe the guy in the Drags department who refused to talk to Juan. I just think no one really knew the entirety of what was required. It didn't help that I don't speak Spanish and couldn't ask follow up/clarifying questions. I think it may have been a change as recent as 2022, based on the version date from one of the forms I got. The guy at the Consulate said it's due to the number of cars stolen in the US and driven into Mexico. d) I will only park in paid parking lots going forward. e) I also had people ask me why I didn't just bail and make the car rental agency handle it. First, it was my fault. I chose to park there. I was also renting the car by the day, and I was highly motivated to get the car back ASAP. It was a small business, and I was raised in a small business. I'm never gonna purposely make it harder on them. Juan told me that in 30 years he's never had one of his cars towed in Mexico. Stolen yes, but not towed. So he was floored by the whole nightmare process. He also only charged me the original five days rental and waived the additional eight days it was in impound. Super nice guy.

Have

• Items with "various" condition indicates I have more than one copy.
• Modded systems will NOT come with illegal/pirated games.
• Most disk based games for trade have been professionally resurfaced and tested, unless the game was already in pristine condition.
• Do not ask me for prices or what value I have on these items. They are either listed or readily available on various sites. Please research prices thoroughly and make an offer.

Stock Consoles

Item	Condition	Notes
Nintendo Switch	Very Good	[Serial XAW1011] OEM Red (not Mario Red) Joy-Cons, glass screen protector, custom transparent backplate, Pokemon stickers, kickstand, and case
Nintendo Switch	Very Good	[Serial XKW1000] OEM Red/Blue Joy-Cons, glass screen protector, kickstand, and case
Nintendo Switch	Very Good	[Serial XAW9420] This is a demo/kiosk unit that displays a message "Could not load software" upon boot. The console has been formatted and does not display the demo software. It needs to either be modded or loaded with the demo software to run. This is a collector's item more than anything. Kickstand and screen protector included. No Joy-Cons.
Nintendo Switch	Very Good	[Serial XAW1003] UNPATCHED, Neon/Red Joy-Cons, includes glass screen protector, kickstand, and case
Nintendo Switch	Very Good	[Serial XAW 1002] UNPATCHED, Pink/Neon Joy-Cons, glass screen protector, kickstand, and case
Nintendo Switch Lite (Blue)	CIB
Nintendo Switch Lite (Gray)	Very Good	Loose
Nintendo New 3DS (Black Friday)	Very Good	New top screen shield installed, some general signs of use throughout. Comes with charger.
Nintendo 3DS XL (Black)	Good	Loose; will come with third party charger
Nintendo *New* 3DS XL (Black)	Very Good	Comes with soft case, charger, and Nintendo-branded hard shell case
Nintendo WiiU Black 32GB	Very Good	Loose, comes with all cords (may be third party) and fresh setup prompt
Nintendo WiiU Black 32GB Legend of Zelda Edition	Very Good	Loose, comes with all cords (may be third party) and fresh setup prompt
Nintendo WiiU White (PAL) with New Super Mario Bros. U (PAL)	Very Good	Loose, comes with all cords and fresh setup prompt
Nintendo N64	Various	Loose, can include cords, Jumper or Expansion Pak, and OEM or custom controller
Nintendo N64 (Jungle Green)	Very Good	loose, can include cords, Jumper or Expansion Pak. Will come with a matching OEM Jungle Green custom controller if desired
NES	Good	New pin connector, lockout chip removed. Can include cords and/or controllers
Nintendo Gamecube (Black & Platinum)	Various	Can include cords and/or controllers
Sega Dreamcast	Various	Can include cords and/or controllers
Nintendo Wii (White & Black, Gamecube compatible) with Homebrew Launcher	Various	Can include cords and/or controllers
Nintendo Wii (White & Black, Gamecube compatible)	Various	Can include cords and/or controllers
Nintendo Wii (Light Blue)	Very Good	Can include cords and/or controllers
Playstation 2 (Slim & Fat) with Free McBoot	Various	Can include cords and/or controllers
Playstation 3 (Slim)	Various	Loose, can include cords and/or controllers
Nintendo DS Lite (Black)	Good	No charger, stylus, or Game Pak cover; charges with good battery and both cartridge slots work
Ozzie Ozzie Ozzie! Game Boy Color	Very Good	Loose
Nintendo 3DS (Pink)	CIB	With box protector
Playstation Classic	Loose	(x2) Includes 1 controller (each)

Modded Consoles

Item	Condition	Notes
Nintendo N64 (USB-C power mod)	Various	Loose, console has a USB-C port instead of stock power brick connector. Can include cords, Jumper or Expansion Pak, and OEM or custom controller. Console will be made to order
Nintendo Gamecube (Black & Platinum) with GCLoader ODE and/or USB-C power mod	Various	Can include cords and/or controllers. Console has a usb-c port instead of stock power brick connector. Console will be made to order.
Sega Dreamcast with GDEmu ODE	Various	Can include cords and/or controllers. No other mods installed.

Cartridge Games

Console	Item	Condition	Description/Notes
NES	Super Mario/Duck Hunt	Various	Loose
NES	Super Mario Bros. 3	Various	Loose
SNES	Super Mario World	Various	Loose. Will come with new save battery
Nintendo 64	Super Bowling 64	Very Good	Loose (Valued $800 firm)
Nintendo 64	Super Mario 64	CIB Very Good	Player's Choice
Nintendo 64	Super Smash Bros.	CIB Good
Game Boy (Color)	Pokemon Blue	Very Good	Loose. Will come with new save battery.
Game Boy (Color)	Pokemon Pinball	Various	Loose.
Game Boy Advance	Super Mario Advance	CIB Very Good
Nintendo 3DS	Pokemon Moon	Very Good	CIB
Switch	Nickelodeon Kart Racers	Very Good	Loose
Switch	Minecraft	Very Good	Loose
Switch	Super Monkey Ball Banana Mania	Loose
Switch	Super Mario Party	Very Good	CIB
Switch	Mario Kart 8 Deluxe	Very Good	CIB. Box art is slightly crinkled
Switch	Pokemon Scarlet & Violet Double Pack	New	Sealed

Disk Games (Complete or Semi-Complete)

• All boxes will be OEM boxes unless otherwise noted
• I can't stress enough that everything in this category COMES WITH THE GAME TOO.

Console	Item	Condition	Description/Notes
Gamecube	Legend of Zelda Collectors Edition Promo Disk	Good	Box and disk only, no inserts, some wear on the box art
Wii	Wii Sports	Various	Cardboard sleeve & Manual (some are missing manuals)
Wii	Mario Kart Wii	Very Good	Big Box, Wii Wheel (new in bag), Game with Manual & Inserts
Wii	Zelda Twilight Princess	Very Good	Box, Manual, & Inserts
Wii	Mario Party 8	Very Good	Box, Manual, & Inserts
Wii U	Mario Kart 8	Very Good	Box & Manual
Dreamcast	NFL 2K	Factory Sealed
Dreamcast	Sonic Advance	Very Good	First run
Playstation	Jet Moto 2	Very Good	Black label
Playstation	Road Rash 3D	Very Good	Greatest Hits
Playstation	Crash Team Racing	Various	Greatest Hits & Black Label, some missing manuals
Playstation	Soul Blade	Very Good	Greatest Hits
Playstation	Resident Evil Director's Cut	Various	Greatest Hits CIB

Loose Disks

• All disks have been professionally resurfaced/buffed when necessary and tested thoroughly
• I am also interested in "completing" collections of loose items I currently own (boxes, manuals, etc.). If you have a case, box, or manual for any of the items listed below, I am interested in acquiring it.

Console	Title	Description
Dreamcast	Marvel vs. Capcom 2	Has a Hollywood Video protective security sticker overlay
Gamecube	ATV 2: Quad Power Racing
Gamecube	Batman: Vengeance
Gamecube	Bionicle Heroes
Gamecube	Conflict Desert Storm II: Back to Baghdad
Gamecube	Crash Tag Team Racing
Gamecube	Crazy Taxi
Gamecube	Donkey Konga	Also have several DK Bongos for trade!
Gamecube	FIFA 2003
Gamecube	Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles
Gamecube	Harry Potter to Himitsu no Heiya (JAP)
Gamecube	Harry Potter Quidditch World Cup
Gamecube	Home Run King
Gamecube	LOTR: Return of the King
Gamecube	Mega Man Anniversary Collection
Gamecube	Metroid Prime Echoes Bonus Disk
Gamecube	MC Groovz: Dance CRAZE
Gamecube	Mortal Kombat Deadly Alliance
Gamecube	Naruto Clash of Ninja 2
Gamecube	NAMCO Museum
Gamecube	Need For Speed Underground
Gamecube	Need For Speed Hot Pursuit 2
Gamecube	NHL 2003
Gamecube	Prince of Persia: Warrior Within
Gamecube	Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time
Gamecube	Resident Evil 4	Disk 2 only
Gamecube	Resident Evil Biohazard 0 (JAP)	Both disks
Gamecube	Robotech Battlecry
Gamecube	Shrek 2
Gamecube	Sonic Heroes
Gamecube	Sonic Mega Collection
Gamecube	Splinter Cell: Double Agent	Both disks
Gamecube	Spy Hunter
Gamecube	Spyro: A New Beginning
Gamecube	Star Fox Adventures
Gamecube	Star Wars Jedi Knight 2: Jedi Outcast
Gamecube	Star Wars Rogue Leader: Rogue Squadron 2
Gamecube	Super Smash Bros. Melee (x2)
Gamecube	Tak: The Great Juju Challenge
Gamecube	Tak: The Power of Juju
Gamecube	The Simpsons Road Rage
Gamecube	Tony Hawk's Underground
Gamecube	True Crime: Streets of LA
Wii	Backyard Baseball '10
Wii	Battalion Wars II
Wii	Bleach: Shattered Blade (Shonen Jump)
Wii	Donkey Kong Country Returns
Wii	Donkey Kong Jungle Beat
Wii	Kirby Epic Yarn
Wii	Lego Star Wars: The Complete Saga
Wii	Mario Kart Wii
Wii	New Super Mario Bros. Wii
Wii	Super Mario Galaxy
Wii	Super Mario Galaxy 2
Wii	Super Smash Bros. Brawl
Wii	Wii Sports
Wii	Wii Sports & Wii Sports Resort (Single Disk)
Wii	Wii Sports Resort
Wii	Zelda Twilight Princess
Wii U	Animal Crossing Amiibo Festival
Wii U	Minecraft Wii U Edition
Wii U	New Super Mario Bros. U
Wii U	Pokken Tournament
Wii U	Splatoon
Wii U	Super Smash Bros. for Wii U
Wii U	Zelda BOTW	Will come with home-printed cover
Playstation	Agile Warrior F-III X
Playstation	Auto Destruct
Playstation	Blasto
Playstation	Breath of Fire III
Playstation	Casper
Playstation	Chrono Cross	White Disks
Playstation	Crash Team Racing
Playstation	Croc: Legend of the Gobbos
Playstation	Dragonball Final Bout	Gray/Blue Disk (Bandai version)
Playstation	Final Fantasy Chronicles & Chrono Trigger	White Disk
Playstation	Final Fantasy Tactics	White Disk
Playstation	Final Fantasy VII	White Disks
Playstation	Grand Theft Auto
Playstation	Jet Moto 2
Playstation	Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver	Green Disk
Playstation	Lode Runner: The Legend Returns/Extra
Playstation	Mega Man X4	White Disk
Playstation	Mega Man X5	Blue Disk
Playstation	Metal Gear Solid	Disk 1 (Black)
Playstation	MYST
Playstation	Need for Speed 3
Playstation	Need For Speed: High Stakes
Playstation	Playstation Demo Disk 42 March 2001
Playstation	Playstation Underground Jampack Fall 2001
Playstation	Power Serve: 3D Tennis
Playstation	Ready 2 Rumble Boxing
Playstation	Revolution X: Music is the Weapon
Playstation	Ridge Racer
Playstation	Rogue Trip
Playstation	Saga Frontier 2	Comes with waterlogged manual cover and back art
Playstation	Silent Hill
Playstation	Squaresoft 1998 Collector's CD vol. 1
Playstation	Spyro The Dragon	Silver Disk
Playstation	Star Wars Episode 1: Jedi Power Battles
Playstation	Syphon Filter 2	Disk 1
Playstation	Tekken 2	Color disk edition
Playstation	Tekken 3	Color disk edition
Playstation	Tenchu: Stealth Assassins
Playstation	Test Drive 4
Playstation	The Last Revelation
Playstation	Tony Hawk's Pro Skater	Blue Disk & Greatest Hits (x2)
Playstation	Tomb Raider II	Red Disk & Greatest Hits (x2)
Playstation	Tomb Raider III	Green Disk (x2)
Playstation	Tomb Raider	Blue Disk
Playstation	Toy Story 2
Playstation	Twisted Metal 4	SilveGreen Disk
Playstation	Twisted Metal II
Playstation	Wild Arms 2	Disc 2 only
Playstation	Yu-Gi-Oh! Forbidden Memories
Playstation 2	Contra: Shattered Soldier
Playstation 2	Dark Cloud
Playstation 2	Def Jam Fight For NY	Greatest Hits
Playstation 2	Def Jam Vendetta	Greatest Hits
Playstation 2	Drakengard 2
Playstation 2	Ed, Edd, n Eddy: The Mis-EDventures
Playstation 2	Gran Turismo 3
Playstation 2	Jak 3
Playstation 2	Marvel Ultimate Alliance
Playstation 2	Metal Gear Solid 3
Playstation 2	Metal Slug Anthology
Playstation 2	Midnight Club Street Racing	Greatest Hits
Playstation 2	MLB Power Pros
Playstation 2	MLB Slugfest 2006
Playstation 2	Need For Speed Underground 2 (x2)
Playstation 2	NFL Street	DEMO NOT FOR RESALE
Playstation 2	Resident Evil X Code: Veronica	Greatest Hits
Playstation 2	Skate 3
Playstation 2	Sonic The Hedgehog
Playstation 2	Spider-Man Web of Shadows Amazing Allies Edition
Playstation 2	The Simpsons Road Rage	Greatest Hits
Playstation 2	TMNT	Greatest Hits
Playstation 2	Tomb Raider Anniversary
Playstation 2	True Crime: Streets of LA
Playstation 3	Bayonetta
Playstation 3	Ratchet and Clank FUTURE: A Clank in Time	Greatest Hits
PSP	007 Casino Royale (Movie)	Tested, in original white shell
PSP	Capcom Classics Collection Remixed	Tested and re-cased in new clear shell
PSP	Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII	Tested and re-cased in new clear shell
PSP	Daxter	(x2) Tested and re-cased in new clear shell
PSP	Dissidia: Final Fantasy	Tested and re-cased in new clear shell
PSP	Final Fantasy IV	Tested and re-cased in new clear shell
PSP	Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children (Movie)	Tested and re-cased in new clear shell
PSP	From Dusk Till Dawn (Movie)	Tested and re-cased in new clear shell
PSP	Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories	Tested and re-cased in new clear shell
PSP	Harry Potter & The Order of the Phoenix	(x2) Tested and re-cased in new clear shell
PSP	Hot Shots Golf: Open Tee 2	Tested and re-cased in new clear shell
PSP	Kotoba no Puzzle: Mojipittan Daijiten	Tested and re-cased in new clear shell
PSP	Medal of Honor Heroes 2	Tested and re-cased in new clear shell
PSP	Medievil Resurrection	Tested and re-cased in new clear shell
PSP	Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops	Tested and re-cased in new clear shell
PSP	Metal Slug Anthology	Tested and re-cased in new clear shell
PSP	Midnight Club 3 DUB Edition	Tested and re-cased in new clear shell
PSP	Midnight Club L.A. Remix	Tested and re-cased in new clear shell
PSP	MLB	Tested and re-cased in new clear shell
PSP	Mobile Suit Gundam: Gundam vs. Gundam	Tested and re-cased in new clear shell
PSP	Monster Hunter Freedom	Tested and re-cased in new clear shell
PSP	NAMCO Museum Battle Collection	Tested and re-cased in new clear shell
PSP	NBA Ballers Rebound	Tested and re-cased in new clear shell
PSP	Need For Speed Most Wanted 5-1-0	Tested and re-cased in new clear shell
PSP	NFL Street 2 Unleashed	Tested and re-cased in new clear shell
PSP	Pursuit Force	Tested and re-cased in new clear shell
PSP	Secret Agent Clank	Tested and re-cased in new clear shell
PSP	Splinter Cell Essentials
PSP	Star Wars Battlefront Elite Squadron	Tested and re-cased in new clear shell
PSP	Star Wars Battlefront II	Tested and re-cased in new clear shell
PSP	Star Wars Battlefront Renegade Squadron	Tested and re-cased in new clear shell
PSP	Star Wars Lethal Alliance	(x2) Tested and re-cased in new clear shell
PSP	Tekken Dark Resurrection	Tested and re-cased in new clear shell
PSP	Tony Hawk's Underground 2 REMIX	Tested and re-cased in new clear shell
PSP	Tron Evolution	Tested and re-cased in new clear shell
PSP	True Crime: Streets of LA

Game & Console Boxes

• Check description for quality, quantity, and other information
• I am also interested in "completing" collections of loose items I currently own (boxes, manuals, etc.). If you have an item to complete a set from the items listed below, I am interested in acquiring it.

Console	Game	Item	Condition
Nintendo Gamecube	The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker	K-Mart exclusive cover and Nintendo Power Strategy Guide (no game or inserts)
Nintendo Switch	Switch Lite	Yellow and Coral boxes (no inserts)
Nintendo Switch	Switch Gen 1 & 2 Boxes	Red/Blue and Gray variants, some inserts
Nintendo 3DS	Pokemon X	Box and inserts only
Nintendo 2DS	2DS Console (Black/Blue) Super Mario Bros. 2	Console Box (x2)
Nintendo 2DS	2DS Console (White/Red) Super Mario Bros. 2	Console Box (x2)
Gamecube	Spongebob Sauarepants: Creature from the Krusty Krab	Black Label Box
Gamecube	Viewtiful Joe: Red Hot Rumble	Black Label Box
Switch	Zelda BOTW	Box & Art

Manuals

• Check description for quality, quantity, and other information
• I am also interested in "completing" collections of loose items I currently own (boxes, manuals, etc.). If you have an item to complete a set from the items listed below, I am interested in acquiring it.

Console	Game	Item	Condition
Atari 2600	Centipede	Loose Manual
Atari 2600	Combat	Loose Manual
Atari 2600	Missile Command	Loose Manual
Atari 2600	Pac-Man	Loose Manual
Atari 2600	Space Invaders	Loose Manual
Atari 2600	Tutankham	Loose Manual
Game Boy	Asteroids/Missle Commands	Loose Manual
Game Boy	Bionic Battler	Loose Manual
Game Boy	Brain Drain	Loose Manual
Game Boy	Donkey Kong	Loose Manual
Game Boy	F1 Race	Loose Manual (x3)
Game Boy	Game Boy Camera	Loose Manual (x2)
Game Boy	Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade	Loose Manual
Game Boy	Joshua The Battle of Jericho	Loose Manual
Game Boy	Jurassic Park	Loose Manual
Game Boy	Jurassic Park Part 2: The Chaos Continues	Loose Manual
Game Boy	Kid Icarus	Loose Manual
Game Boy	Kirby’s Pinball Land	Loose Manual
Game Boy	Mega Man: Dr. Wily’s Revenge	Loose Manual (x2)
Game Boy	Pokemon Sapphire	Loose Manual
Game Boy	Star Wars	Loose Manual
Game Boy	Tetris	Loose Manual (x2)
Game Boy	Tetris Blast	Loose Manual
Game Boy	The Rugrats Movie	Loose Manual
Game Boy	Toy Story	Loose Manual
Game Boy	Yoshi	Loose Manual
Game Boy Advance	Breath of Fire	Loose Manual
Game Boy Advance	Breath of Fire II	Loose Manual
Game Boy Advance	Cima The Enemy	Loose Manual
Game Boy Advance	DK King of Swing	Loose Manual
Game Boy Advance	Frogger’s Adventure: Temple of the Frog	Loose Manual
Game Boy Advance	Frogger Advance: The Great Quest	Loose Manual
Game Boy Advance	Gauntlet/Rampart
Game Boy Advance	Golden Sun (With Poster)	Loose Manual
Game Boy Advance	Lufia The Ruins of Lore	Loose Manual
Game Boy Advance	Mario Kart Super Circuit	Loose Manual
Game Boy Advance	Metroid Fusion	Loose Manual
Game Boy Advance	Namco Museum
Game Boy Advance	Pokemon Emerald	Loose Manual
Game Boy Advance	Pitfall The Mayan Adventure	Loose Manual
Game Boy Advance	Pokemon Sapphire	Loose Manual
Game Boy Advance	Shaun Palmer’s Pro Snowboarder	Loose Manual
Game Boy Advance	Star Wars Trilogy: Apprentice of the Force
Game Boy Advance	Super Mario World - Super Mario Advance 2	Loose Manual
Game Boy Advance	Super Mario Advance	Loose Manual
Game Boy Advance	Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 3	Loose Manual
Game Boy Advance	Warioland 4	Loose Manual
Game Boy Advance	Wolfenstein 3D	Loose Manual
Game Boy Color	Duke Nukem	Loose Manual
Game Boy Color	Frogger	Loose Manual
Game Boy Color	Pokemon Pinball	Loose Manual (x3)	2 in good condition, 1 has a loose cover
Game Boy Color	Revelations The Demon Slayer	Loose Manual
Game Boy Color	Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater	Loose Manual
Game Boy Color	Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 2	Loose Manual
Game Boy Color	X-Men Mutant Academy	Loose Manual
Game Boy Color	Zelda Oracle of Seasons	Loose Manual
Game Boy Color	NFL Blitz	Loose Manual
Gamecube	NBA Live 06	Loose Manual
NES	Duck Hunt/Super Mario Bros	Loose Manual (x2)
NES	Excitebike	Loose Manual
NES	Formula One Built To Win	Loose Manual
NES	Mega Man 2	Loose Manual
NES	Super Mario Bros 2	Loose Manual (x2)
NES	Super Mario Bros 3	Loose Manual
NES	Tetris 2	Loose Manual
Nintendo 64	Donkey Kong 64	Loose Manual (x2)
Nintendo 64	Goldeneye 007	Loose Manual (x2)
Nintendo 64	Mario Kart 64	Loose Manual
Nintendo 64	Zelda Ocarina of Time	Loose Manual (x2)
SNES	Super Mario All Stars	Loose Manual (x2)
SNES	Super Mario Kart	Loose Manual
SNES	Super Mario World	Loose Manual (x3)
Wii	Mario Party 8	Loose Manual
Wii	Mario Super Sluggers	Loose Manual
Wii	Super Mario Galaxy 2	Loose Manual
Wii	Super Smash Bros. Brawl	Loose Manual
Playstation	Crash Bandicoot (Greatest Hits)	Loose Manual
Playstation	Crash Bash (Greatest Hits)	Loose Manual
Playstation	Duke Nukem Total Meltdown	Loose Manual
Playstation	Final Fantasy VIII	Loose Manual
Playstation	Spyro The Dragon (Greatest Hits)	Loose Manual
Playstation	Tekken 2	Loose Manual
Playstation	Twisted Metal III (Greatest Hits)	Loose Manual

Strategy Guides & Magazines

• Check description for quality, quantity, and other information
• Some of these did not advertise posters or other promotional items, so I did not include that in the description. The ones that do indicate a promotional item will have that in the description

Console	Game	Item	Condition
Game Boy	Game Boy Player's Guide	Official Nintendo	Very Good
Game Boy	Pokemon Red	Prima Strategy Guide (x2)	Very Good
Game Boy Color	Pokemon Trading Card Game	Official Nintendo Power Guide	Very Good - no promotional card
Game Boy Advance	Pokemon Emerald	Official Nintendo Power Guide (x2)	Acceptable, no poster, some loose binding, creases
Game Boy Advance	Pokemon Emerald	Prima Strategy Guide	Very Good - poster included (detached)
Game Boy Advance	Pokemon Ruby & Sapphire	Prima Strategy Guide	Acceptable, slightly waterlogged
Game Boy Advance	Pokemon Ruby & Sapphire	Prima Strategy Guide	Good
Game Boy Advance	Zelda Minish Cap	Official Nintendo Power Guide	Very Good - poster included (attached)
Gamecube	Super Smash Bros. Melee	Official Nintendo Power Guide	Good, some creases
Gamecube	Zelda Wind Waker	Official Nintendo Power Guide	Acceptable, some loose binding, creases
Multi	Primal Rage	Brady Totally Unauthorized Guide	Good, some creases
Nintendo 64	Diddy Kong Racing	Brady Totally Unauthorized Guide	Acceptable, some loose binding, creases
Nintendo 64	Pokemon Stadium	Prima Strategy Guide	Very Good
Nintendo 64	Star Wars Episode I RACER	Official Nintendo Power Guide	Very Good
Nintendo 64	Zelda Ocarina of Time	Prima/Gamestop Exclusive	Good
Nintendo DS	Pokemon Diamond and Pearl	Official Nintendo Power Guide	Acceptable, some loose binding, creases
Nintendo DS	Pokemon White 2 and Black 2	Official Preview Guide	Very Good
Nintendo Power	Volume 99 - Goldeneye 007	Official Nintendo Power Magazine	Very Good, includes tear-outs (attached), small price sticker on front

Controllers, Accessories, & Misc.

Item	Condition	Notes
Official SNES Controller for Nintendo Switch	Very Good	(x2) CIB but missing plastic bags
Official Nintendo 64 Controller for Switch	Very Good	Loose
Nintendo Swtich Pro Controller	CIB	Used but in Very Good condition
Super Mario Game & Watch	Various	NIB & CIB but missing outer sleeve
Nintendo New 3DS Black Friday Bottom Faceplate	Very Good	Will trade for literally any other set of OEM faceplates
Mario WiiMote	Very Good	Loose, comes with blue strap and red WiiMote sleeve
N64 Expansion Pak	Very Good	Loose
Xbox One Minecraft Controller	Very Good	Loose
Various Nintendo Consoles & Handhelds Parts & Mods	Various	See what I do here
Custom Nintendo 64 Controllers	Various	See what I do here
Nintendo 64 Joystick Gears	New	See what I do here
Pokemon Go Plus wristband	Very Good	Complete in Box
Gamecube DK Bongos	Various
Retro Fighters N64 Controller (Ice Blue)	Very Good	Loose, but not used other than to test.
Dreamcast VMU's (Gray, Clear Blue, Clear Green)	Very Good	Missing caps, looking for other colored variants. I have: Clear Blue, Clear Green, Clear Black, Clear Red

Swaps

• I would like to straight swap these items for other specific items.

Console	Item	Swap For:
Xbox Series S/X	Call of Duty Black Ops Cold War Disk Version (Loose)	Call of Duty Black Ops Cold War Xbox Digital Code
Nintendo 64	Orange/Yellow Pokemon N64 Controller	Blue/Yellow Pokemon N64 Controller

High-Priority Wants

Console	Item	Description/Notes
Nintendo 64	Blue/Yellow Pokemon Pikachu N64	Light and Dark Blue varieties, Console and controller
Neo Geo Pocket Color	Baseball Stars	CIB Preferred
Miscellaneous	Tony Hawks' Pro Skater 1&2 Vinyl	Click link for specific release
Nintendo Gamecube	Paper Mario TTYD	Manual only
Game Boy Advance	Metroid: Zero Mission	Game and manual only
Game Boy Advance	Pokemon Sapphire	Box only
Game Boy Advance	Pokemon Emerald	Box only
Misc. Nintendo	Nintendo Oddities	Kiosks, displays, promotional items, NFR cartridges, etc. Not dumb little Target/Walmart keychains
Nintendo New 3DS	New 3DS White	Can have any/missing faceplates
Nintendo Switch	Poor Condition Joy-Con Controllers	Any and all OEM Joy Cons. Can have stick drift. All buttons must be functional. Do not value these any higher than $25/set. Do not try to trade broken junk controllers for high value items. You will be blocked.
Dreamcast	VMU Variants	Looking for clear yellow and other international variants

Other Wants

• Open to offers!

Console	Item	Description/Notes
NES	Super Mario 3	Box only; Left Bros preferred
Nintendo Virtual Boy	Virtual Boy Games, Boxes & Accessories	I have: Mario Clash, Mario Tennis, Teleroboxer, Golf (CIB), Wario Land, 3D Tetris, Galactic Pinball, Red Alarm, Red Alarm (NFR cart) & Virtual League Baseball (CIB); CIB preferred
Nintendo 64	JAP Watermelon console	Loose preferred, do not need cords/controller
Nintendo 64	Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3	Loose or CIB
Game Boy Advance	Zelda Four Swords	Box & Manual (Greatest Hits Okay)
Game Boy Advance	Pac Man (NES Classic GBA Series)	CIB preferred
Game Boy Advance	Metroid (NES Classic GBA Series)	CIB preferred
Nintendo Gamecube	Mario Party 4	Manual only
Nintendo Gamecube	Mario Party 5	CIB only (Greatest Hits Okay)
Nintendo Gamecube	Pokemon Colosseum Bonus Disk	CIB only
Nintendo Gamecube	Paper Mario TTYD	Manual only
Nintendo Gamecube	Soul Calibur II	Box & Manual only
Nintendo Gamecube	The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker	Disk and manual only
Nintendo DS	HeartGold/SoulSilver PokeWalkers	Any and all, including the clip and cardboard insert
Nintendo Gamecube	Metroid Prime 1 & 2	Case art that advertises the dual pack only with manuals (no games)
Nintendo 3DS	Special Edition 2DS/3DS systems	I have: Pokemon B, Zelda Hyrule, Zelda Triforce, Black Black Friday, White Black Friday, Pokemon Red & Yellow 2DS (JAP), NES, Mario Maker 2DS, Galaxy, New Super Mario Bros. 2; Interested in basically any special edition variant of the 2DS/3DS line, New & XL models preferred. Complete In Box preferred
Nintendo 2DS	White/Red Nintendo 2DS	Loose preferred
Nintendo 2DS	Blue/Black Nintendo 2DS	Loose preferred
Nintendo 2DS	2DS Screen	Or one with a damaged motherboard or other issues. Screen must be in working condition
Misc. Nintendo	Pokemon Boxes & Manuals	Any and all cardboard variants
Misc. Nintendo	Nintendo Game & Watch handhelds	Pre-Game Boy era systems only. Not looking for the new re-releases
Dreamcast	OEM Controller Variants	I have: Clear Green/Red/Black/Blue looking for other transparent variants and Sega Sports Black with matching VMU's
Dreamcast	Typing of the Dead	Case/Manual/Box only
Playstation 2	DBZ Budokai Tenkaichi 3	Manual only
Miscellaneous	Celeste OST LP Vinyl	Complete preferred, any edition
Miscellaneous	Lo-Fi Girl Vinyls	All collections, any edition
Miscellaneous	Console/Game Boxes & Styrofoam	Any and all, non-stock versions preferred

Items Pending Receipt

Item	Status

TLDR; “How many stocks do I really have in stock? 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 + 5” - He’s aiming a supernuke at the ENTIRE FUCKING INDUSTRY right now. He can’t just drop that shit one at a time because if he does, they’ll come for him to kill the signal. You don’t fuck with the money, and Drakes their money. So Dot’s building the tracks up RN, going to drop them all at once and go to ground.
After having read this post yesterday it really got my brain working. I’m a pretty skeptical dude, but legit this one really does sound like some Epstein shit.

• fuck you and fuck the industry too
• The industry’s cooked as I pick the carcass apart

If K-Dot’s got the line on the industry, whatever he has is so fucking big that he knows he’ll be in REAL danger if he drops it, because you know you don’t fuck with the exec’s cashflow. They will try to silence him like Boeing.
I might just be trippin under some tinfoil hat but I legit think that if you compare yourself to Katt you must really have some serious shit. I think he’s used the beef that we always wanted as a way to heat up the court of public opinion. Now that we’re all heated like crazy, he’s taking the time to finesse, esp. since some folks think it’s over. He’s honing this last bit, gonna drop 5 (maybe more) all at once which annihilate the industry, burn a trail to some receipts, then disappear like a shooting star.
Calm before the motherfuckin storm.
This might seem like it’s not related, but stick w/ me: I think folks are sleeping too much on 6:16 in LA. I just have a gut feeling that as of right now, that one was actually recorded latest, yes even after the ATL bars from Not Like Us, it’s really got post-nut clarity vibes.
Kendrick doesn’t waste words, so whenever one of his lines sticks out as being odd/not making sense, dig into that. Go stellar. The shooting star shit is just like septuple entendre fire on its own, but why is he “hopping planets”? Where’s his mind at when he’s writing it? He just saw the van get crushed; I know if I was him I’d be thinking a lot about maad city, esp. Bitch, Don’t Kill My Vibe, where he’s talking to the industry itself. Go back to it, check the planet reference. Study up. There’s really something htere.
So yeah, that’s my tinfoil. It’s not just a number, it’s also how he’s gonna release them. This shit is in no way over for him.
edit: added link

Knowing how to stop living paycheck to paycheck provides you with extra cash to build an emergency account and increase your savings. It enables you to allocate more money to debt repayment so you can reach financial freedom sooner.
What does living paycheck to paycheck mean? You have barely enough money to cover your monthly expenses, and no money is left over to be added to savings. That’s a tough position to be in, which can cause frustration, stress and other mental conditions.
The good news is that it’s within your control to form new money habits that will put you on a path to achieve your financial goals.

Why You’re Struggling Financially

The two biggest reasons people struggle financially is because of status and comfort. It’s likely that your motivation for shopping is those two factors. You should never finance a vehicle, but many people do because others being impressed by their car makes them feel a certain level of status.
The car’s heated seats and sound system provide them with comfort. But comfort is also associated with more affordable purchases such as a subscription to a video streaming service or the fifth pair of shoes you have to own otherwise you’re going to die.
Status and comfort are not only the causes of your financial struggles, but they’re the reason you’re still struggling. Most people don’t want to lower their standard of living because it means lowering their status and being less comfortable.
To stop living paycheck to paycheck, STOP WORRYING ABOUT YOUR STATUS AND BECOME UNCOMFORTABLE!
Do you know what percent of Americans live paycheck to paycheck? Just over 60%. In the so-called richest country in the world, more than half of the population has no money after paying their monthly expenses. Yikes.

Living Your Life for Other People…..

It’s likely that you’re worried about what your family, friends or partner will think if you downgrade to a more affordable vehicle, move to a cheaper neighbourhood and no longer wear designer labels. Imagine what they’ll think of you when you’re homeless. If you don’t have any savings, you’re one paycheck away from being on the street.
That actually happened to me.
I had invested all of my money into a nightclub I opened. After selling a portion of my shares to my partners, I became the minority shareholder and got fired from the business I started.
With no savings, I was evicted from my apartment and had nowhere to go. I parked on the side of the street and lived in my car. The two financial management degrees I obtained at university didn’t help me avoid homelessness.
I learnt that being broke makes you not care about what others think of you.
The reason you still care about what others think of your possessions is because the extent of your pain isn’t too severe. With me living on the street and not having food, you can imagine that my pain was extremely severe and reached its threshold.
That’s when I made a change.
I decided to learn about getting out of debt and saving money. If you follow the advice I will dispense in this blog, I have no doubt that your financial situation will improve. The extent of the change you make will determine how much money you save.
I recommend you take drastic steps, which will require you to stop worrying about what others think and say about you, and become uncomfortable.

A Money Savings Challenge

I learnt that money management is about how much money you keep, not how much you make. My belief used to be that a higher income would heal all my financial wounds. I was wrong.
I actually received a few raises, yet I made no financial improvements. The reason is that I had conditioned myself to be a spender, and savings weren’t high on my priorities. I’m willing to bet you’re the same. If I’m wrong, why do you not have savings?
The key to saving extra money is to recondition yourself to become a saver. This gives you the highest probability of staying on the savings path and not reverting to spending habits.
Habits are formed after remaining disciplined for weeks and months. Eventually, you should reach a point where spending money is painful. Now, you probably get satisfaction from buying items because you’re wrapped up in status and comfort.
It’s time your ego took a blow.
Here’s a money savings challenge that will take you from struggling to savings:
Live way below your means. Be a minimalist for a prolonged period. It will change your life for the better and enable you to save a lot of money. That’s what happened to me. I went from the street to paying off $40,000 in debts and saving up $50,000.
You have to go all in. There’s no bargaining with me when it comes to compiling a minimalist budget. Your only option is to reduce all expenses. It sounds impossible, but it’s not.

Step 1: Compile a list of your expenses

To get the most accurate figure for your expenses, you need to keep all receipts for a month. Enter them into a money-saving app or an excel spreadsheet. Ensure that every expense is recorded—parking and movie tickets, clothing and especially takeaways.
Keep each expense on its own line item.
I recommend inputting the receipts immediately after purchase so you don’t lose them. You may be overwhelmed with the number of receipts to record at the end of the month, so it’s best to do it right away.

Step 2: Scrutinize your expenses

This is where the change takes effect. All of us can reduce our expenses. You need to look at each item on the list and come up with a solution to reduce it. Notice I said, ‘solution’ and not, ‘see if you can’. Every expense can be reduced.
Let’s start with the biggest expenses most people have—housing and transportation.
If you work remotely, moving to a cheaper place is easy. You can be anywhere in the world. Your goal with a minimalist budget is not to live in a cool neighbourhood but to save money. This also pertains to office workers. If you cannot move too far away, reduce your living expenses by moving to a smaller place within the neighbourhood.
Rent out a room or move in with someone. I did it, and I saved a lot of money. I realise that an adjustment to your living situation affects your privacy, but it’s time to be uncomfortable.
Keep in mind that not all changes are permanent. Eventually, once you’ve built up a healthy savings account, you can be more flexible with expenses. But right now, become less comfortable by moving to a more affordable place, or share your living space.

Cars

Ahhh, that piece of machinery that depreciates and is a bottomless money pit. Your vehicle is sucking all the money from your wallet, and because of status and comfort, you hang on to it. If you live in a metropolitan city offering public transport, there’s no reason for you to own a car. The only time it makes sense financially is if you use it to generate an income such as being a taxi driver or a sales rep.
The average car payment in America is almost $700. That’s bananas. You wanna hear something crazier? My car payment was higher than my rent. Yes, I was a financial moron, which is one of the reasons I ended up on the street.
Even if your car payment is $300, that’s not the only expense it carries. Other costs are registration, maintenance, tire replacement and gas.
YOUR CAR EXPENSES ARE ONE OF THE BIGGEST REASONS YOU’RE LIVING PAYCHECK TO PAYCHECK.
Get rid of your car ASAP. At the very least, downgrade to a more affordable one. I haven’t owned a car for six years, and I’m coping just fine. I saved a tremendous amount of money because I don’t own a vehicle.

Food

Stop eating out and getting takeaways. Just stop it. Not only are you likely consuming unhealthy food, but you’re spending a fortune on it. If you cut restaurants and takeaways out of your monthly budget, don’t be surprised to have an extra few hundred dollars at the end of the month.
Even if you don’t eat out, you can reduce your groceries bill. Look at the food that you’re buying and the supplier. Instead of having steak often, substitute it with macaroni and cheese. Buy your food from farmers’ markets. It’s likely to be cheaper and healthier than supermarkets.

Subscriptions

Say goodbye to your video streaming subscriptions. The golf club membership? Cancel it now. You can’t afford it. It’s as simple as that. Every dollar counts, and you need to exclude any expense that isn’t necessary for survival.
I’m prepping you for a hardcore financial makeover, and you’re either onboard or not. But your decision will determine if you keep sinking financially or take massive leaps to a savings account.
I haven’t owned a TV for more than 10 years. If I can do it, so can you. Read a book instead. It will provide you with knowledge and make you a more interesting person.

Other items

Keep scrolling through your list and find ways to decrease each expense. Reduce the number of times you go out with your friends to places where you spend money. Instead, opt for a barbecue at each other’s houses.
Clothing is another big expense, especially for women. There is nothing wrong with wearing the same clothes numerous times. Steve Jobs and Mark Zuckerberg did it all the time.
Stop buying gadgets and other stupid stuff from Amazon or other retailers. I don’t have anything against those companies, but I do have a problem with you wasting money.

Final Thoughts on How to Stop Living Paycheck to Paycheck

If you think I’m crazy for suggesting you follow all my guidelines, I think it’s crazy that people can barely wait for their paychecks to feel some relief. I can’t imagine living from one month to the next. The mental torment such people feel must be excruciating. Not having money to cover an unexpected expense can feel degrading.
Do yourself and your family a favour by making a savings goal to live like a minimalist. You’ve been comfortable and a spender for far too long. Improving your financial situation will require a drastic change. I’ve shown you how to stop living paycheck to paycheck. Everything I mentioned is what I followed. That’s how I know it works.
If you want to start by saving $100, check out my article How to Stop Being Broke. It provides practical advice that will recondition you to become a saver.
Just know that the way you’ve been doing things has brought you the results you have. If you want different results, you’ll have to manage money differently.

土车 08:25 下车 08:26
It’s from a taxi receipt, what does it mean? Especially the first line Thank you

My luggage was likely stolen at the ATL airport on Friday. I say likely because my app and Delta’s system show it was delivered to claim 4, but I arrived 5 minutes after my bag tag was scanned as delivered. I stopped at the restroom after a 4 hour flight - that was my only delay on the way to baggage claim.
Two questions: 1. Has anyone else experienced this and had their bag eventually show up?

1. Will filing a police report help anything? I’m worried that doing this will interfere with any sort of pittance compensation Delta might offer.

I’m pretty upset because from early receipt gathering and pricing, it’s at least $1500 worth of items. For the “don’t put expensive items in your checked bag, it’s your fault” crowd: I’m a female who was on a 5-day work trip post-maternity leave. These were mostly new work clothes bought on a budget from Loft and Express and worn once. Add in makeup, hair products, skincare and shoes and it’s easy to hit that threshold, and that doesn’t even count the luggage itself.
I travel again on another 5 day trip in two weeks, so unfortunately I don’t have a lot of time to wait and see if anything shows up. I’ve already started replacing things. And yes, I ordered AirTags for next time.

🫖 Welcome back to the Asylum write-up. This is where you live now. Part 1 Part 2 Part 3
In this installment, we finally take a closer look at how Emilie Autumn's hyper-loyal fanbase gradually started losing faith in her as, among other things, it became more and more apparent that she... wasn't exactly a reliable narrator – in her semi-autobiographical book, or in general.

HOW IT STARTED: A WOMAN OF MYSTERY

Willow, weep for me Don't think I don't see This life I'm living in two But still it's something I must do I'm not unique in this Nor am I special, sweet, or kind I court a thousand smiles Yet I keep my own to hide behind (“Willow”, 2004 🎵)

I've previously referred to EA as an “expert vagueposter”, and this is relevant here.
For an artist who built her brand on a pledge of raw, rats-and-all honesty, EA has always been quite guarded about the specifics of her personal life. (Until her current partner, for instance, she always danced around calling anyone a boyfriend, even when the nature of the relationship was pretty obvious.) Her whole angle is telling “the truth”, but through whimsical fantasy. As early as the fairy-themed Enchant era, she had her own world, her own vernacular; she spoke in metaphors, in-jokes, and quirky anachronisms. Taxis were carriages, her electric keyboard was a harpsichord, she always capitalized Time and Art like Shakespeare does. On the Asylum forum, automatic word filters would change “fan” to “muffin”, “fairy” to “faerie”, “bra” to “teacup holder”, and “responsibility” to “ratsponsibility”.
She's a chatterbox who loves to share memories and funny anecdotes, but she usually keeps them short and sweet, Snapple-facts style. 📝 She's great at painting by touches in her storytelling, revealing just enough to let your imagination auto-complete the rest. 🔍 Even the most banal tidbits are very artfully told, very “on brand”, often dense with symbolism and foreshadowing – but also very abstracted.
She is especially elusive when it comes to her background and formative years. See the way she catches herself in this interview 📺📝 while describing her “favorite scar”, which is from an eel bite: “My – well, someone I knew... [gasp-laugh] had it as a pet, and...” (She was about to say “my sister”.)
In short, the way EA talks about her life is often very personal, but not all that candid – and sounds more like it's meant to provide a curated, coherent backstory for Emilie Autumn the character, rather than Emilie Autumn the person.

I'll tell the truth, all my songs Are pretty much the fucking same I'm not a fairy but I need More than this life, so I became This creature representing more to you Than just another girl... (“Swallow”, 2006 🎵)

In the beginning, this guardedness naturally contributed to the mystique. It made it all the more special when, once in a while, she would briefly drop the theatrics to share something earnest and relatively unfiltered. Like this composed, but vulnerable post from 2004 📝 about her father losing his battle to cancer, and her attempts at closure over their tense relationship. Or this 2012 anti-bullying campaign thing 📺 in which she opens up about being a target of intense physical bullying in elementary school, to a point that contributed to her being homeschooled at 9.
Fans in the early years were curious about her backstory, of course – but not too prodding or invasive, to my knowledge. I think there was an understanding that EA, like many performers, wanted to come across as human and approachable, while still cultivating an “aura” and retaining some privacy. But obviously, when she announced that she was writing a Tell-All Memoir in 2007, everyone was dying to read it. TEA TIME!

HOW IT'S GOING: A WOMAN OF... MALARKEY???

LIAR! LIAR! LIAR! LIAR! LIAR! LIAR! LIAR! LIAR! LIAR! LIAR! LIAR! LIAR! LIAR! LIAR! LIAR! LIAR! (“Liar”, 2006 🎵)

As we've learned, the original 2009 release of EA's book was highly anticipated, but somewhat tainted by a bunch of shipping delays and unfulfilled promises. From the start of her career, EA had always cultivated a close parasocial involvement with her audience; many fans had as deep an attachment to her, personally, as they did to her art. So, for instance, when EA tweeted about all the personal dedications she was lovingly writing in overdue books, only for the books to arrive many months later and unsigned with no tangible explanation, it wasn't simply frustrating: it was betrayal amongst kin!
Really, it wasn't so much about fans not getting what they paid for – it was about the lack of clear communication or genuine accountability. This is pure speculation on my part, but the poppycock that EA tweeted about signing the books strikes me as the panic-lie of someone who hadn't realized just how many heartfelt, personalized dedications she would actually have to write when she came home from tour. And then she just couldn't do it, because she was overworked, paralyzed, distracted, depressed, procrastinating, whatever. Which... you know... is unfortunate, but probably not unforgivable. Especially for a touring performer who is open and vocal about their mental health issues.
I'm confident that most fans would have been happy to tell her that her well-being meant more to them than an autograph, or something along those lines. Instead, EA's cagey and avoidant demeanor around this issue left fans very salty – and newly suspicious of their favorite artist's word.
Which was regrettable timing for EA, because they had just received their copies of her memoir.
Here's a cursory look at some key biographical points that didn't hold up to scrutiny when more and more vexed fans, over the years, started looking into them.
Content warning until end of post: family estrangement, death by fire, worsening physical health issues, mention of disordered eating / weight loss / thinspiration, and LIES! LIES! LIIIIIES!

“EMILIE AUTUMN LIDDELL (BORN SEPTEMBER 22, 1979) IS AN AMERICAN SINGER-SONGWRITER...” (Wikipedia)

Every fandom has its Holy Grail. Because a number of EA's early releases were limited pressings put out through now-defunct record labels, the EA fandom in its heyday was a collector's wonderland. 📝🦠 At the height of her popularity, the original Enchant jewelcase (the one with the puzzle-poster) could easily fetch around $500 dollars on eBay, unsigned. The handwritten lyrics of an Opheliac B-side went for $940 in 2009. Don't even ask me about the hard copies of her two poetry books: those never even popped up over the five or six years that I had various alerts set up for all EA-related listings.
But the true crown jewel of EA rarities is the untitled promo version of her (also virtually unfindable) 2001 instrumental debut On a Day... No one knows how many copies exist. The darn thing is so rare that it's not even listed on Discogs. For a while, the only picture of the elusive “Violin” promo CD that was circulated online was this one.🪞 Go ahead, click the link. Notice anything odd? That black box where one composer's birth year should be?
I'm not sure why the notorious hyper-fan who originally shared this picture on the forum in the early 2010s took it upon himself to censor it before posting. I wasn't able to pinpoint when or why people started questioning EA's age, but clearly, something had already transpired to let him know that not redacting said birth year might, uh... cause an upset. In any case: at some point, people started digging – and eventually, the unredacted version of the “Violin” tracklist (as well as public records and literal receipts from eBay auctions) would be brandished as one more piece of damning evidence that EA was indeed (gasp!) two years older than she claimed to be.
“Okay, and?” you shrug. “What's the big deal?” I'm shrugging too! What can I say? People don't like realizing they've been fooled, even about something stupid. I will note that EA's fall equinox birthday (hence her middle name “Autumn”, yes) had been somewhat significant in the fandom. Over the years, EA's birthdays had been marked by online release parties, Q&A's, community events, special merch sales... A number of fans liked donning her trademark cheek heart on September 22. It felt a bit uncanny to realize that she had been announcing a false age on those occasions. It wasn't “a big deal” so much as it was incredibly odd.
Other than being appalled that Self-Proclaimed Staunch Feminist EA would give in to the cult of youth and not cop up to her real age, many fans were just plain bewildered: who would commit so stubbornly to such an inconsequential lie? What was even the point of lying by two years only? Why did she think anyone would care that she was 28 rather than 26 when Opheliac came out? What was she possibly getting out of this...??
My completely speculative theory is that, whether it was her idea or her then-manager's, the lie originated as a marketing strategy early on in her career. The “Violin” demo was recorded in 1997, when EA was 19-going-on-20. Per the liner notes of On a Day... 📝, which came out when she was 22, the demo's purpose was to be “a sort of calling card in the classical music industry”. Evidently, that didn't work out; EA claims, in the same paragraph, to have walked out on a classical recording deal at 18 because they wouldn't give her enough creative control.
Talented and unique as she was, she was trying to break out in a notoriously elitist and innovation-resistant milieu – and unlike her, most of the 22-year-old classical violinists she was in competition with had actually graduated from their prestigious music schools. But you know what sells better than an ambitious college dropout in her early twenties? Tweaking the truth just so to market yourself as an unconventional wunderkind, barely out of her teens! Any rendition of a complex, learnèd musical piece sounds more intriguing and impressive if you think it was played by an especially young (and beautiful) person. 20 was plausible, close enough to her real age, barely a lie at all, and such a nice, round number for a debut album.
Notice how much of the On a Day... liner notes, linked above, center on her precociousness, her uniqueness, and her savant-like dedication to her craft – a focus that seems absent from the promo version (from what I can decipher in those potato-quality pictures, anyway). These talking points would provide the basis for a lot of her early self-promotion and budding stage persona in the Enchant years. Even though the EP failed to make EA a household name in the classical world, the wunderkind narrative was her “in” to grab the attention and heart of a broader audience.
And I guess she's been running with it ever since.

“MY ANCESTRY IS POSITIVELY LITTERED WITH LUNATICS AND GIRLS WHO FALL DOWN RABBIT HOLES ... MY NAME IS EMILIE AUTUMN LIDDELL. YES, THAT LIDDELL.”

Oh, come on. Much as a fan may want to believe, isn't that a little on the nose? The anglophile with an obsession for tea, clocks, and madness... is literally related to Alice in Wonderland? 🔍 Curiouser and curiouser indeed.
EA came out as Emilie Autumn Liddell in The Book – of course – in a passage where she describes an interaction with a nurse. 📝 Note how she stresses the authenticity of her name, and how not-chosen it is (and the Alice connection, which just comes up organically) by disclosing it in a scene where she's filling out paperwork.
I'm pointing this out, because it would be tempting to allow room for creative license (and the slightest cringe) in a work of creative fiction based on personal experience. Buuut... TAFWG was not marketed as fiction. The main narrative in TAFWG, according to EA, is an actual fac-simile of the journals she kept during a harrowing stay at a Los Angeles psychiatric hospital following a suicide attempt. This is something that EA has stressed from the inception of the book (and throughout all subsequents re-issues, even as the main narrative was altered and reworked), even claiming that a legal team had advised her to redact some names to avoid potential lawsuits. So, no, she's not doing a bit there.
When, after it made the rounds a few times, it became apparent that the claim didn't really make sense 📝🔍, reactions were mixed. Some older, diplomatic fans downplayed it as a somewhat embarrassing, but harmless self-mythologizing – similar in nature to her insistence on calling her electric keyboard a “harpsichord”. Devout EA apologists (commonly referred to as “bootlickers” in an increasingly polarized fandom – oh, don't worry, we're getting to that!) invoked the “life as performance art” defense: when she said it was literally her first name, she meant it metaphorically, duh! And either way, she probably had her reasons.
But others took offense at the boldness of the lie, or simply became curious. Was Liddell even her name at all?
If you've checked the link just above, you already know the answer. Per the public California birth log (a somewhat demented invasion of privacy that could well have been avoided by... not repeatedly drawing attention to a name that someone in the book calls “right out of a movie”?) : yes, no, kind of.
EA was born Emily Autumn Fischkopf* on September 22, 1977. The name came from her father, a first-generation immigrant from Germany. Her maternal grandmother's maiden name was Liddell (but no, not that Liddell, or so remotely that it doesn't matter). EA may have had it legally changed at some point in the last decade, but as of 2012, based on the public log of foreign visitors to Brazil (where she toured that year), her passport still bore the name “Emily Autumn Fischkopf”.
*No, EA's birth name is not literally “Fischkopf”. It's a non-silly German name that begins with an F. I know that it's ridiculous to clutch my pearls about EA's peace of mind now, but triggering new and disquieting Google alerts for a name she clearly wants nothing to do with (and that you don't care about) just feels... distasteful? I don't know. That info has been floating around long enough, the point has been made; this write-up is not about EA's last name, but about the fiends we made along the way! So Fischkopf it is.
Let's track the evolution here! It appears that she went by “Autumn Fischkopf” for at least part of her formative years, if we are to believe the credits from Mark Ruffalo's middling film debut 📺 (she was the child actor's violin-playing body double) and this random article about a Nigel Kennedy performance in 1997. 🔍 (That last link – possibly her first ever mention in the press? – is a niche favorite of mine. Violin superstar Nigel Kennedy calls her a “talented fiddler”, which suggests that she did have some cred and promise in the classical milieu at a young age, and that there is at least some truth to her claims of being a wunderkind. It also cracks me up that, out of all the things she's reiterated over the years, “I was born in '79” was a lie, but “I was attacked by a pet eel” was fact-checked by Nigel Kennedy.)
At some point in her late teens, she dropped the Teutonic surname and adopted the French ending of her given name (she made it a “LIE”! how poetic) to form the moniker “Emilie Autumn”. I assume that's also when she started privately going by Emilie / EA for short.
So there you have it. The damning evidence. A performing artist... changed her name. To her grandmother's name. Riveting stuff!
And to think that her fans could have carried on naively believing “Autumn” was her last name, or assuming it was a romantic nom de scène she picked during her Ren Fair phase. Or perhaps, even, not thinking much about her name at all, like normal people.
But nooo, she just had to poke the hornet's nest by making a whole thing out of it.

“MY ENTIRE FAMILY DIED IN A FIRE.”

If you've never encountered a method-acting con artist or a person who struggles with pathological lying (I'll let you decide for yourself which of these, if either, applies to EA), you probably believe that you'd spot them a mile away. And in my experience, that's exactly why you wouldn't! Whether it's compulsion or calculated strategy, successful fibbers rely on people's natural social cues (like their assumption of good faith, their confirmation bias, their empathy, their desire for validation, their fear of awkwardness, ...) to subtly direct the flow and tone of the conversation. This allows them to short-circuit potential questioning of their claims.
One such strategy, for instance, I call the “I-will-not-further-speak-about-the-incident maneuver”. Out of the blue, you drop a graphic and incisive one-liner about something horrific that happened to you, in a curt or flippant tone that throws the listener off and usually shuts them up – thus sparing you from having to back up your claim with any convincing specifics. I'm not saying that every person who does this is a liar. Horrific stuff does happen to people, and I'm not here to police how they're supposed to disclose it. I'm just saying that if you wanted to fabricate an obvious Tragic Backstory™ and smuggle it past otherwise rational, discerning and reasonably intelligent people, that would be one way to do it. Full disclosure: it does work better in person than it does over the internet, especially when you've kept a blog.
When EA curtly dropped this bomb on Twitter (in response to an innocuous fan question that mentioned her parents – the receipt has sadly been X'd out of existence), and every subsequent time a new fan found out about her family's tragic demise (“I had no idea!”), the response was typically one of shock and sadness – and, in a few heartbreaking cases, commiseration from other survivors of family-annihilating events.
Many fans already had a hunch that something was up with her family, of course. She hinted at neglect and possible abuse in her book and lyrics. A number of her fans also came from dysfunctional households, so her not wishing to elaborate on the topic would probably have been a non-issue. But now she's saying they're dead? All of them? In a FIRE?! Holy macaroni! And you know it must have been awful, because EA – the same woman who got a dozen bangers out of a three-month-long toxic relationship, and based over a decade of her work on one bad hospital stay – had never, not once, felt called to share a song or poem about how it might affect a person to... lose all of their entire immediate family to a fire. Hmm. Meanwhile, the handful of older fans who had been following her since Enchant and remembered her dad passing in 2004 gritted their teeth and rolled their eyes. “Do your research. That's all I can say.” (We'll get into the culture of censorship free speech regulation on the Asylum forum in due time.)
Before more and more embittered ex-fans started compiling and circulating the receipts in the early-mid-2010s, investigating the whole “dead family” thing was a lonely journey – a coming-of-age expedition for the critical-minded Plague Rat, trawling through free background check websites and old Wayback Machine archives, until you went “Welp, there it is, I guess” and suddenly felt older, stupider, and a little bit hollow inside.
Although I don't remember how I personally made my way to The Truth (lol) back in the day, I still have a vivid memory of the moment I found the Facebook profile of EA's Very Much Non-Deceased Mother. It was mostly posts about her costume design work. A few candid pictures with EA's siblings and their kids. Christmas, birthdays, a wedding. Just... aggressively normal stuff. It was bizarre, looking in on this family of cheerful strangers with familiar cheekbones. Knowing that, somewhere out there, was an estranged eldest daughter, who had run off years ago to become a fiddle-wielding rockstar – and was now passing them off as having all died a gruesome death, while her fans secretly stalked their family photos. (Because I know you'll be asking in the comments: yes, EA's family is aware. Her mother once posted a picture of young EA and her siblings on Pinterest, sarcastically captioned “After most of us were killed in the fire.” 📝)
Again, it's tempting to discount EA's remark as a metaphor for family estrangement, taken too literally by neurodivergent minors who just didn't understand performance art. Well. First of all, even as a metaphor... let's admit, once again, that that 2000s edginess has aged like fine milk. It's a little crass to make a “metaphor” out of a plausible, life-shattering trauma that other people actually have to live with. (Veronica lost a beloved house to a literal fire 🔍 during her tenure as a Crumpet, for instance; no one died, but that alone seemed pretty rough.)
But, more to the point, evidence suggests that EA also told this to real people in her real, off-stage life – such as her Trisol manager, who backed the claim on the official Asylum Forum in 2007. 📝 When questioned about this post on a renegade forum in 2013, he had this to say:

I was the fool in this case. EA made that up of course. It’s just one thing on a long list of things she made up. Let’s agree she’s very creative with facts if she wants people to believe a story. (...) I once had a short chat with [EA's mom] and I got the strong impression she wasn’t dead at the time. Haha.

(OK, dude, but did you or did you not sell fake EA tickets on a scammy website in 2008? Because we never did get the skinny on that.)
Fifteens years on, EA continues to insist, unprompted, that “the fire” destroyed her childhood drawings and baby pictures. 📝 This more recent Instagram post is like a Greatest Hits of her most notorious yarns, to a degree that's either premeditated trolling or a subconscious call for help. She casually, yet pointedly mentions her age in relation to a specific year... and specifically draws attention to the signature, one that she used well into the Enchant era. In doing so, she made me notice, for the first time, that the A blends into an F. As one could expect from an artsy, Renaissance-obsessed teenager, her OG signature was a freaking monogram for Emily Autumn Fischkopf. It's like “The Tell-Tale Heart” for the digital age! AM I THE ONLY ONE SEEING THIS?? 🦠

A BIT O' THIS & THAT: MISCELLANEOUS CLAIMS

Just for fun, here are other sundry “citation needed” facts that EA has claimed over the years. All are originally from the book unless sourced otherwise. Some of them may have been jokes, some of them might even be true! Whatever that word still means!

• She suffered near-fatal leukemia at age 2, but miraculously recovered. Doctors were baffled.
• She has perfect pitch and tone-color synesthesia. 🔍
• She also had a photographic memory before Ativan ruined it. That's how she remembers what the sky looked like on the day she came out of the hospital leukemia-free.
• It is well-known and well-established, among the bipolar community, that bipolar people all over the world will regularly and inexplicably wake up at 4 in the morning. 🎵 On the dot. No one knows why, but they do. Doctors are baffled.
• She can play the violin on horseback!
• The traumatic hospital stay happened before Opheliac until it happened after. 🔍 Doctors are time lords.
• TAFWVG “has been cited in text-books used as part of the psychology curriculum at Oxford University in London.” 📝 I would have intuited Oxford University to be in Oxford, but then again, I didn't go to Oxford.

ELECTRIC VIOLIN: UNPLUGGED

You know how whenever a musician starts behaving obnoxiously, old sages will come down from Mount Wisdom to advise disgruntled fans to “simply ignore [behavior]” and “just focus on the music”? Well, in the Asylum, “just focusing on the music” won't always preserve you from EA's shenanigans. This “claim” is a little different, but I've decided to include it because it is so odd, emblematic, and ultimately tragic. I also count it as “biographical”, because it involves a key tenet of EA's character sheet: the violin.
Being a kickass fiddler is one of EA's trademarks, and has always been central to her narrative; as of 2024, “world-class violinist” is still the first claim to fame she lists in the “Story” section of her official website. Which beggars the question: why won't she play it? And why won't she acknowledge that she's not playing it?
We got our hopes up in 2020, with that one post 📝 about her iconic 1885 Gand & Bernardel getting refurbished by a luthier – a thoughtful birthday surprise from her boyfriend – but despite the promising “More to come...” at the end of the caption, that turned out to be a false alarm. In truth, it may well have been over a decade since anyone has witnessed EA draw a single note from her cherished instrument.
The fact that Lord Autumn was able to sneak it out during lockdown without the Lady noticing tends to confirm that she hadn't been playing much behind the scenes. She seems to be under the impression that e-violin manufacturer Zeta is no longer in business (they did close down in 2010 🔍, but reopened under new management in 2012), which suggests that she hasn't been keeping up with the violin scene for a while. Besides, the fingernails don't lie. 🐀
As the live shows veered more theatrical with the release of Opheliac, the extended violin features from the Enchant era were cut to two main appearances per concert: “Face the Wall”, a seven-minute-short, Hendrixesque take on Arcangelo Corelli's “La Folia” – and “Unlaced”, an arpeggio-ed frenzy that was originally paired with a stilt-walking and ballet performance by the Crumpets. These two instrumental tracks remained a fixture on four successive tours. And on four successive tours, “Unlaced” was... well... clearly dubbed. 📺 She was holding her e-violin, her hands were playing the notes, but what was coming out of the speakers was indubitably the studio version.
There were possible explanations, of course. Some sound buffs pointed out that “Unlaced” has multiple violin layers, and that a live violin solo would have sounded harsh and unbalanced over the supporting tracks 🔍 – but then, why pick an unplayable song as a staple of the show?
The violin-miming wasn't even very hush-hush, she didn't try that hard to hide it – it was just never addressed or acknowledged. On “Unlaced”, Veronica was usually summoned to “play” the keyboard – and we knew that was make-believe, they had a whole skit about it. 📺 Ditto when EA would play the intro to a song, then get up from the keyboard as she started singing, and the harpsichord track just kept going. It was part of the theatrics, the suspension of disbelief; live playing just wasn't the focus.
Still, because playing two songs should have been in her wheelhouse, EA's choice to stand on stage and mime along with her own world-class violin skills was puzzling. We knew EA was capable of playing “Unlaced”: “Face the Wall” was proof enough that she could still shred like nobody's business, and some lucky fans got to hear her nerd out about pitch standards and rock some Bach at VIP showcases in 2011 (though it was always the same piece, and reportedly not always on point: “she made beginner mistakes, like weird jaw, wrist, elbow placement and tension...” 🐀). And sure, “Face the Wall” was an intense piece, but... it was one of two in the show. The same two, always. She was supposed to be classically trained...!
As EA's fabrications became more common knowledge among the fanbase, people took increasing issue with this odd staging choice – particularly after “Face the Wall” was retired partway through the 2011 tour, leaving only the pantomime, with nothing else happening on stage to distract from it. 📺 People started fixating on her constant and inexplicable tweaking of the truth. Fake name, fake age, fake promises, and now she was fake-fiddling and making a grand show of it? Was she outright mocking her audience, daring them to call her out? Milking a skill she had grown bored with, in the lowest-effort way possible, knowing that goo-goo-eyed fans would still pay to see it? Playing them the world's saddest song on the world's quietest e-violin?
The release of new album Fight Like a Girl in 2012 did little to soothe the Plague Rats' fiddle blues. The violin was much less prominent on FLAG than it had been on Opheliac and Enchant. There were almost no solos, which provided fewer opportunities for playing or miming on stage. “Unlaced” was retired from the touring setlist. One night in Texas during the 2012 tour, due to being on vocal rest, EA played the melody line of “Liar” on the violin. 📺 And that was pretty much the last time world-class violinist Emilie Autumn was heard playing her instrument, on stage or in recording – to the dismay of many fans who had loved her for it.

Can someone please grab this woman by her hand, lead her across her livingroom/bedroom/study, and point at that lonely forgotten dusty violin in a corner of hers so she remembers that she actually owns it? (🐀)

It was yet another bizarre, glaring inconsistency in EA's narrative that fans seemed expected to ignore. Another elephant in the padded room. (Personal anecdote that I don't have a receipt for: in early 2012, when I asked if there was a possibility of EA playing another baroque set for the VIP events on the upcoming tour, her then-manager responded that that wouldn't be possible because venues didn't have the proper acoustics.)
Through some her posts over the years , attentive fans pieced together the likely truth of EA's effective retirement as a violinist. It's actually quite sad, and may cast a different light on EA's artistic shift.
The 2011 tour was initially scheduled for late 2010. It was postponed because EA had been neglecting a jaw injury for years, and needed emergency surgery to avoid “serious and irreversible damage” to her one violin-holding jaw. 📝 She had the surgery early in September; in late November, she performed all over Latin America for six nights straight, and by January, she was back on tour. The same tour during which she made “beginner's mistakes” on the Bach partita, and retired “Face the Wall” for good after a few shows.
She underwent jaw surgery again in 2018, after three years of orthodontic treatment which she said had “prevented [her] from performing”. It was the first anyone was hearing of this (she said she hadn't been touring because she was writing the musical!), and it's as far as EA ever got in terms of half-addressing the obvious: that after dedicating a third of her time on Earth to her craft, after years of pushing through the pain night after night, rushing through recovery periods, and making compromises so the show could go on... she may not be physically able to play concert-level violin anymore.
Once again, something that should (and would) have elicited empathy and support from most fans turned into a point of frustration, speculation and mockery, for years – because EA continued to favor pretend-play and fantasy over the sobering, unglamorous truth. Well, at least everyone's unhappy.

CONTINUED IN COMMENTS

​

I recently got back from a two week trip to Japan and I feel that using this app was a total game changer for my trip. Took well over a couple dozen rides.
After having read lots of transportation questions on this subreddit and elsewhere, I felt it was important to share my experience in the hopes of saving someone else the time from figuring it out.
In areas like Arashiyama Kyoto calling a taxi via the GO app was easy, convenient, and left no mystery to the driver about where we wanted to go. Especially in Kyoto where tourists taking up public transit is an ongoing problem for local commuters, I felt it especially important to be considerate of locals and my impact on public transportation.
Hailing a random taxi that had a GO sticker also made it easy to pay at the end by scanning their QR code and automatically processing payment when the driver ends the ride. Compared to paying with cash or card then dealing with a receipt, using the the GOpay feature made it so much easier to finish the ride.
Misconceptions? I was able to use an American Express CC for all my trips (linked in app) Taxi drivers loved it! 👌🏼 Reservation feature does exist although I didn't use it So efficient, less stairs compared to subways trains
Feel free to ask if you have questions! Happy to share more about my recent trip.
Safe travels 🌸 🧳

The Thrifty paper on night photo 550 has been discussed a lot in fora, also here in Reddit, but I´d like to highlight some ‘new’ information.
Short background: everyone knows that night photo 550 shows a piece of paper on a boulder. The piece of paper has been enlarged and studied by internet sleuths and initially it was thought that it might have been a piece of candy wrapper of some sorts. Later on it was matched to part of the map visible in a day photo of the girls.
In “Lost in the Wild”, Kinga Philipps thought that the piece of paper was part of a candy wrapper.
Let’s see what LitJ and Redditors had to say and what SLIP has found in the police files.
LITJ West and Snoeren, authors of LitJ, also studied the torn piece of paper and they had photo 550 enlarged by Rob de Winter. What appeared was a fairly clear image of the logo of Thrifty Car Rental. In page 259 of Lost in the Jungle (paper version, 1st edition), the authors describe the paper to have been of a Thrifty receipt: … blijkt het een reҫuutje van Thrifty Car Rental te zijn. Translated: … it turns out to be a receipt of Thrifty Car Rental.
REDDIT The piece of paper in photo 550 has also been discussed many times in Reddit and although LitJ had mentioned the word “receipt”, the overall assumption has remained that the paper would have been a torn part from the tourist guide or map.
You can find the comments on Reddit about the Thrifty paper right here:
https://www.reddit.com/KremersFroon/search/?q=Thrifty&type=comment&cId=ae60864b-4ebe-4741-be22-8600b02bf5aa&iId=e42aa08a-eeb9-41ec-a107-f3b0ecd454ae
SLIP SLIP has found some interesting information in the police files:
Next to the branch, we recognize a piece of torn paper which, when enlarged, reveals the lettering of a car rental company. We know from the files that receipts from this company were also found in the girls’ room. (page 101, Kindle Edition)
So what the police files say, is that receipts (plural) of Thrifty Car Rental were found in the girls room. What were receipts of Thrifty Car Rental doing in the girls’ room? We ‘know’, or at least we can deduce that the girls had not hired any car, let alone muliple cars. The girls had been to Bocas for two weeks. The best and cheapest way to move around over there is on foot, by local bus and naturally by boat / water taxi. Within the town of Bocas one would not need a car, one walks. Apart from that, there was/is no Thrifty Car Rental at Bocas.
The girls had made use of the Mamallena bus to travel from BdT to Boquete. They arrived on March 29th and from their diaries we know that they had made use of taxi’s / a taxi. And, there was/is no Thrifty Car Rental in Boquete. Thrifty is located in David.
So, these questions arise: - What exactly was found in the girls room? Receipts or leaflets of Thrifty Car Rental? - If they were receipts as the files say, how come they were in the girls’ room? - Who left them in the girls’ room? - Were they left behind by a former tourist? - Or did they belong to the owners of the house where the girls were staying? - On whose name were those receipts? Or were they blanks? - If they were on someone’s name, how would one of those receipts have ended up in one of the night photos of Kris and Lisanne? - Or were they leaflets after all? Leaflets would be perfectly normal, but receipts?

Warning long post
TLDR: wife used Citi card to pay for a bike taxi in London. Instead of a £20 charge she gets charged £2000. Citi bank states no fraud or discrepancy in charge despite my wife responding to the fraud text immediately stating it that was incorrect then months of back and forth stating she was charged incorrectly. Ending up having to pay what was around $2500 and they only gave us a $250 credit in “good faith”.
As the title suggest beware of using any Citi cards abroad (outside the US). My wife was on a trip with her best friend in London. They both decided to take one of the bike taxis in front of their hotel. After getting to their destination the bike taxi driver states it will be £20. My wife hands him her American Airlines executive Citi card and he swipes it. Then immediately bikes away. (And yes I have told her now to never give her card to anyone and she should only ever swipe it herself, hard lesson learned there). The total duration of the bike taxi was approximately 10 minutes.
Shortly after she receives a text from Citi asking if she had bought a taxi for £2,000.00. She immediately responds no and they freeze her card.
Citi bank then calls her asking for details. She states that the taxi was only supposed to be £20 and that she handed the taxi driver her card and he swiped it. They end up giving us a credit for the charge (£2000, about $2500) on our account while they investigate the charge further. At this time we are relieved and figure this will be the end of the situation.
Fast forward a month and we receive a letter stating this was not fraud since she handed them the card and they swiped it. Citi rescinded our credit and we now owe the full £2000 (approx $2500). My wife immediately calls Citi Bank asking why this occurred and again stated she was incorrectly charged £2000 instead of £20. The customer service agent agrees this does not seem right and opens a new fraudulent card case and gives us another credit.
Fast forward another month and we receive the same letter stating it is not fraud and we are liable for the charge. We again call Citi and this time we’re told this is correct. We ask to speak to a customer service manager who tells us this is not necessarily fraud, but is a case of charge discrepancy and it should have been filed as that in the first place. She opens up a charge discrepancy case, gives us an account credit, and tells us this should be quickly resolved and not to worry about the charge.
Citi bank then contacts my wife asking for a a receipt for the transaction showing it should have only been £20 instead of £2000. The issue here is that the taxi driver never gave her a receipt and he was the one that swiped her card. She tells them this and they say they will look into it and a couple weeks later send us a letter stating it is closed and we owe the charge. The letter also stated they will not reopen the case again and the decision is essentially final.
In the end we paid the charge as we do not want to get charged interest on it and are blessed enough to be able to afford to pay it off without much hardship. Having been in a place before where this would have been financially more difficult to recover from is one reason I write this post. To warn others that Citi does not have your back and you will be liable even if you try to handle things in the right way (as I am not sure we could have done anything differently after the charge occurred). A second reason I write this is to hopefully help others not make the same mistake my wife did in blindly trusting others abroad. While I am sure this can happen in the US it is not my experience (such as giving a fast food employee or server at a restaurant your card to pay for a meal). Lastly, I write this as my wife and I feel a sense of betrayal from a bank who we used to use daily and have had a near decade long relationship with. We would have thought they would have had our back especially considering she immediately told them it was incorrect.
If you have made it this far I would like to say thank you for taking the time to read this post. I hope it gives you valuable information whether you are looking into getting a Citi card or are already a cardholder.

Warning long post
TLDR: wife used Citi card to pay for a bike taxi in London. Instead of a £20 charge she gets charged £2000. Citi bank states no fraud or discrepancy in charge despite my wife responding to the fraud text immediately stating it that was incorrect then months of back and forth stating she was charged incorrectly. Ending up having to pay what was around $2500 and they only gave us a $250 credit in “good faith”.
As the title suggest beware of using any Citi cards abroad (outside the US). My wife was on a trip with her best friend in London. They both decided to take one of the bike taxis in front of their hotel. After getting to their destination the bike taxi driver states it will be £20. My wife hands him her American Airlines executive Citi card and he swipes it. Then immediately bikes away. (And yes I have told her now to never give her card to anyone and she should only ever swipe it herself, hard lesson learned there). The total duration of the bike taxi was approximately 10 minutes.
Shortly after she receives a text from Citi asking if she had bought a taxi for £2,000.00. She immediately responds no and they freeze her card.
Citi bank then calls her asking for details. She states that the taxi was only supposed to be £20 and that she handed the taxi driver her card and he swiped it. They end up giving us a credit for the charge (£2000, about $2500) on our account while they investigate the charge further. At this time we are relieved and figure this will be the end of the situation.
Fast forward a month and we receive a letter stating this was not fraud since she handed them the card and they swiped it. Citi rescinded our credit and we now owe the full £2000 (approx $2500). My wife immediately calls Citi Bank asking why this occurred and again stated she was incorrectly charged £2000 instead of £20. The customer service agent agrees this does not seem right and opens a new fraudulent card case and gives us another credit.
Fast forward another month and we receive the same letter stating it is not fraud and we are liable for the charge. We again call Citi and this time we’re told this is correct. We ask to speak to a customer service manager who tells us this is not necessarily fraud, but is a case of charge discrepancy and it should have been filed as that in the first place. She opens up a charge discrepancy case, gives us an account credit, and tells us this should be quickly resolved and not to worry about the charge.
Citi bank then contacts my wife asking for a a receipt for the transaction showing it should have only been £20 instead of £2000. The issue here is that the taxi driver never gave her a receipt and he was the one that swiped her card. She tells them this and they say they will look into it and a couple weeks later send us a letter stating it is closed and we owe the charge. The letter also stated they will not reopen the case again and the decision is essentially final.
In the end we paid the charge as we do not want to get charged interest on it and are blessed enough to be able to afford to pay it off without much hardship. Having been in a place before where this would have been financially more difficult to recover from is one reason I write this post. To warn others that Citi does not have your back and you will be liable even if you try to handle things in the right way (as I am not sure we could have done anything differently after the charge occurred). A second reason I write this is to hopefully help others not make the same mistake my wife did in blindly trusting others abroad. While I am sure this can happen in the US it is not my experience (such as giving a fast food employee or server at a restaurant your card to pay for a meal). Lastly, I write this as my wife and I feel a sense of betrayal from a bank who we used to use daily and have had a near decade long relationship with. We would have thought they would have had our back especially considering she immediately told them it was incorrect.
If you have made it this far I would like to say thank you for taking the time to read this post. I hope it gives you valuable information whether you are looking into getting a Citi card or are already a cardholder.

I think I posted this in the wrong section previously. Hopefully this time it is correctly posted under trueoffmychest section.
For context, the characters in the story is as follow. Cannot go into too much details that may giveaway identity as this is an ongoing issue.

• Father, John Doe, is a serial cheater, manipulator, and a turd in general. Its either his way or the highway. When he needs you, you can count on him to be present and responsive, otherwise pretty much AWOL and absent. Bad tempered and a bit of a snowflake.
• Mother, Jane Doe. Used to work but stopped as John does not like her working which eventually made her reliant and dependent on John. She is kind and sometime cheeky person.
• Mike, family friend. Used to be John's best friend and would take us to places whenever we visited him. Very generous, kind, and caring person, but can be quite spontaneous.

Based on what I heard when stories are told, Jane is the prettiest girl in their high school year and John got her pregnant during one of their dates. Not sure if he intended it to be a one night stand or if he is really into Jane. Jane's family is quite conservative and wanted to keep the child. Not sure what John's family's opinion at the time but it doesn't matter. John and Jane eventually got married and then continued with their tertiary education. John went overseas while Jane stayed back in their hometown to attend local university.
Fast forward to when I was in year 1. John and Jane both have finished their tertiary studies. John came home and, together with Jane, whom I shall refer to as mum from this point onwards, went to another town to start their careers leaving me with my grandparents. My grandparents are very strict and instilled a lot of traditional values in me (i.e., must be someone that has good conscience, etc.). It was not until year 4 that John and mum has sufficiently established themselves to have me stay with them.
At first, everything is great. I am very happy that I can finally be like the other kids and living with my parents. Understandably, mum is a bit overwhelmed as parenting is a whole new world for her. Although she stayed with my grandparents and I for the first few years of my life, a lot of her time went towards her university studies, so there are a lot of trial and error with her parenting style. This is also around the time when John got her to quit her job.
In the last 6 months of that year, John increasingly spent more time on business trip overseas. Then one day I woke up to a screaming match at around 05:00 AM in the morning. Mum has been suspicious for awhile about why John insists on keep going to his "business trips". She begged him to stop but he won't listen, and this is when I first learnt about John's infidelity. I was quite shocked as I always pictured my parents as those picture perfect happy family, and maybe that's why I don't remember much beyond that night.
We went to live overseas at the start of my year 5 to the country John always went to on his "business trips". I am sure at first it is all strictly actual business reason, so who knows when he picked up his side-chick. We were happy for awhile. During that time I am not sure if he has totally stopped seeing the side-chick or not, but arguments become increasingly frequent till the day we learnt that the side-chick is actually another employee in the company and has recently been terminated for sneaking another man to the company-provided female dormitory.
Things went on normally after that, but John has never stopped being stingy with us. He would get the taxi driver that we used frequently to give him extra receipts and stuff for him to file as travel expense to the company. We were given a certain budget for rental accommodation and I know for a fact that we were always way under the budget, but John would falsify invoices to make it look like we used up most (if not all) of the allowance. His reasoning is that we should save up so that we can buy our own place or whatever. Whenever we go out, he will pick the cheapest place to eat, stay, etc., and we hardly spend money on anything outside of the necessity (i.e., groceries).
Because of our lifestyle, my school life has been a nightmare. If you do not live in a certain part of the town, not caucasian, not wearing the "cool kids" brand, not having things like walkman/MP3 player, not wearing deodorant, or look anything out of the ordinary, you get ostracized. You get made fun of, get excluded, being the butt of jokes, etc. This went on for 3 years until we moved to another city. Am I frustrated? Very, but I figured at the time that if I can survive this, I will be fine regardless of where I go.
Same thing happened, as expected, in my new school, but this time I had practice, so I didn't care. The bullying isn't as prevalent in this new school and I started having a small group of friends, which then gradually included most of the Asian kids in the year. Arguably, being part of a group makes the less cool kid somewhat cool to some extent as we are generally smarter and perform better with our grades. At this point, I suppose I can say that I am happy. I have friends, and my parents seems to be getting along just fine.
Fast forward to high school graduation. I have applied to and was accepted by a university that is as far from my parent's place as possible. Mostly because I want to get away from John. He is the type of father that would sigh and look at you disapprovingly when he sees you on your computer playing a bit of games. As if he is so disappointed to have a kid that played computer games.
While I was away, John and his best friend Mike started a joint venture in our home country. They bought a plot of land in a rapidly developing place to build residential building to rent out. Outside of this, John has also climbed the corporate ladder to become one of the region's big honcho and by now, he owned about 3 properties that he is renting out so we were never affected much financially as he has his secret squirrel cash that we built up from living underbudget for the last 8 years.
Since I was away all those time, I only get scraps of information about the last 12 years of my family. Apparently at some point John sends my mum and sibling to live elsewhere to get a foreign citizenship so that we have a better future, better job opportunity, etc. He stayed alone back in the country where we previously were living in. Around the same time, the joint venture has accumulated enough money in the last few years for Mike, John, mum, and a few other friends to go travelling. Of course, John did not have to pay for a penny on the travel and accommodation cost because it is all the profit from the joint venture.
Things beyond this point are all allegedly what happened. On the way back from this trip, John went to get secretly married to his current mistress. Then he continued on as if nothing has happened. Mum once noticed that his wedding ring looks different and joked that he may have gotten secretly remarried but I don't recall seeing his response, which is odd. He bought a new luxury villa for the mistress along with a brand new BMW. He also bought each of her son a Mercedes and I can't remember if it is another BMW or what. He will take them all out for meals and holiday to places and shower them with luxury gifts. He even bought luxury bags for the mistress' sons' partners. Meanwhile, our house in the new country is falling into disrepair and he always say that he has no money to fix anything. I guess mum does not want to stress me out so she kept this a secret (about the fact that something is wrong with John).
After some digging around, I come across a few names of people to look into. There was this one particular lady that stood out from the rest, so I decided to add her on social media to see if there's anything off. A day later John called me asking me what I was doing. I was surprised as I hardly talked to John in the past 10 years unless during family visit. I told him the truth and that I was curious about this person, lets call her Karen. This was when he confessed to me that he has an affair outside and confessed that he bought her a luxury villa, etc.. Not going to lie, but I am shocked. How can he do this and then claim that he will still be responsible and take care of my mum and siblings when he has been very stingy with everything that involves money. He promised me that he will tell me more about Karen and will find a good time to talk to mum about this, so I promised him that till the day he confessed to mum, I won't meddle in his business. Maybe I am being selfish or stupid, but I know mum would know about Karen to certain degree due to John's history of infidelity. Who knows.

For context as to how badly he hamstrung mum financially, he will only give her a bit of cash to pay for my sister's extracurricular activities where the instructor wants to be paid in cash. Then he gave her a credit card for groceries, etc., but he will also lump all the utility bills, school tuition, etc., to that card, so it will frequently max out. Imagine how mum must feel when she goes to the doctor or get groceries only to find that her card has been declined. When she call him to try get him to help, he either won't answer or take a long time to answer, which brought mum to tears numerous time. Imagine the embarrassment that she has to endure in public places. Then he would constantly question the transactions on the credit card and constantly complained to outsiders and my grandparents that mum is spending too much and he cannot keep up. He won't even attend my sibilings' graduation. When my sister asked if she can go travelling with her high school friend before university starts, he said that he doesn't have the spare cash, but I found out that he has just been travelling with his mistress and I have the photo to prove it.

Mike knew what John did and chastised him for it, so they are no longer on speaking terms, which means the joint venture is kinda sitting in limbo. The agreement that they originally signed is quite loosely worded, which John used as an excuse to say that Mike has been plotting to devour his share of the business even before they embarked on this journey. Because of John's infidelity, Mike has been withholding the earnings from the joint venture because he knows that Karen is a golddigger. For context, allegedly Karen is one of those girls that sleeps around with rich people. They would even fly her out to see them. I spoke to John to ask him why don't he let me manage Mike because clearly they are no longer on talking terms and he has no leg to stand on to recoup his investment. Mike and I are on good terms, so if I can takeover, we can preserve our stake in the business. At the back of my mind I was preparing for the day when Karen drained every penny out of John. This way we have a leg to fallback on.
My lawyer friend suggested that I get John to agree to this in writing, which I would have done if I could, but looking back I feel that it may be going a bit too far and John might find this offensive, so I did not. 1 year later, Mike got me into the business and as soon as John found out, he came to see me and we have a screaming match in front of the grandparents. In his words "if you don't back out, it will get dirty" and "don't call me dad if you refuse to back out". My position is and always has been "help me to help you", we should be on the same side, so help me understand what is your plan because as soon as I burn this bridge with Mike, there is no going back. If the original signed agreement is too loosely worded that John has little ground to stand on, we will lose everything. When I say everything, it is not that much when converted to USD (probably around $220k).
John has been very well paid in his job and I have his bank statement to see that he gets annual bonus which is close to $100k USD on top of his salary, so he really has no need to go this far just for $200k when we will still be paid dividend if I manage it. Especially when this dividend money is to be set aside when the worst eventually happened. My only explanation is that John is being his usual self, a control freak that wants to control everything in our family life. Well, that's fine. Since the screaming match, I have gone no contact with him and has put the dividend payment aside in a savings account.

I know for certain that John is the one lying to me because he accused Mike of stealing people's money when he go into business with friends, which is why only John is willing to do business with him in this joint venture. Afterall they are best friends before John betrayed mum. I asked him to give me names of people Mike has swindled but he is unable to. He gave me the name of a person, so I reached out to that guy who strongly denied that Mike has stolen his money.
Recently, I have been advised that John has taken Mike to court. I am not sure on what grounds, but he got the police to call him in for an interview. He even dragged Mike's wife and family to the station by getting the police to summon them. Then after about 10 months of no contact, he called me through my grandfather's phone to try get me to go back home to testify against Mike. He said that if I trust him, he will even guide me on what to say. This does not sit well with me, not only that this is wrong to lie to the police, I will also be getting Mike in trouble for doing what he can to protect John's family and John's future. He even persuaded my grandfather, who is more of a father to me than John ever has been, to pressure me to do this. Grandpa's view is that we must side with our family no matter what. Family? Which side of the family are you referring to? Do I side with John and get Mike in trouble and forgo any hope of savings and retirement fund for my mum and potentially him? Or do I side with Mike who has gone through a lot of trouble for doing John's job of protecting John's family?
My mind is a mess and I am at loss. There are nuclear options that I can consider, i.e., report to the police that John is living with a woman that is not his wife, I can leak the story to the rest of the family and extended family, I can ruin John's reputation if I have to. I will go nuclear and report his behaviour to his company, which could mean that he would lose his job.
Things are a lot worst and there are a lot more things that I could have said, but I am trying to focus on the most important bits while giving some context instead of writing a novel on reddit. Anyone has a family as messed up as this? What should I do?

TL;DR Rental car charged me when they shouldn't have, wouldn't fix it, I stopped everyone in my company renting from them.
Years ago someone hit my parked car. My insurance covered a rental and set it up for me at, let's call them, Company D.
They were supposed to have the car ready when I dropped mine off at the body repair shop in the AM - they didn't. Said they would deliver, so I grabbed a taxi to work (on my dime). At the end of the day they show up, have a junky Chevy economy car 'ready'. Ready but I have to shuttle the worker back to the rental car place.
I rent a lot of cars (this is important later) so I look it over, decent shape, but the gas is like just above half. I tell the guy and he's like, ya, we had to run some errands. Just bring it back at the same level.
Oddly, I had to rent a big SUV (from my usual rental car company A) for work that week and was out of town. I worked for a multinational consulting firm (also important). So this rental from Company D, I drove a whopping 16km when it was time to return it. I put in $5 of gas and dropped it off after my work trip.
I get my credit card bill and there is a $70 charge. The rental should have been paid for by insurance but my card was on hold. I call and ask what's going on. Was told I didn't return it with a full tank. I explained I got it not full. He said, you got it at 13/16ths (no joke) of a tank and it was 11/16th when I dropped, so with the fuel and refuelling service charge, boom $70.
I fought, sent on my $5 receipt, pointed out in/out mileage was only 16km and this was a shit box 4 cylinder engine so how could that use so much. I called managers, corporate, argued logically nothing. It was the principle at this point. Eventually got a hold of some VP I found on LinkedIn or something. I said, reverse the charge and apologize or I will make sure we never rent from you again. He didn't care.
Fast forward a couple years. I had told everyone I know not to use Company D anymore. They lost some business but it didn't hurt I'm sure.
Then, as luck would have it, our company was negotiating rates with all the big firms for hotels, cars etc. Our head of procurement wanted feedback from frequent travellers from various operating companies. My name was picked for feedback as one of the more experienced global travellers. Lucky me, unlucky Company D
I told procurement that I liked this hotel chain or that airline, whatever. I kept an even keel, nonplussed. Then when it came time for rental cars, I had a big song and dance for how Company D can't be trusted, some various made up shady practices like not having safe cars, not offering extended services - whatever I needed.
A month or so later, I see our online portal that we must use to book travel no longer features Company D (or the sister brands) as a car rental option. I personally had probably spent $20k on rental cars a year on average. If I extrapolate that to just my operating company's 4000 employees, that was the most expensive $70 they ever ripped someone off for.

For context, the characters in the story is as follow. Cannot go into too much details that may giveaway identity as this is an ongoing issue.

• Father, John Doe, is a serial cheater, manipulator, and a turd in general. Its either his way or the highway. When he needs you, you can count on him to be present and responsive, otherwise pretty much AWOL and absent. Bad tempered and a bit of a snowflake.
• Mother, Jane Doe. Used to work but stopped as John does not like her working which eventually made her reliant and dependent on John. She is kind and sometime cheeky person.
• Mike, family friend. Used to be John's best friend and would take us to places whenever we visited him. Very generous, kind, and caring person, but can be quite spontaneous.

Based on what I heard when stories are told, Jane is the prettiest girl in their high school year and John got her pregnant during one of their dates. Not sure if he intended it to be a one night stand or if he is really into Jane. Jane's family is quite conservative and wanted to keep the child. Not sure what John's family's opinion at the time but it doesn't matter. John and Jane eventually got married and then continued with their tertiary education. John went overseas while Jane stayed back in their hometown to attend local university.
Fast forward to when I was in year 1. John and Jane both have finished their tertiary studies. John came home and, together with Jane, whom I shall refer to as mum from this point onwards, went to another town to start their careers leaving me with my grandparents. My grandparents are very strict and instilled a lot of traditional values in me (i.e., must be someone that has good conscience, etc.). It was not until year 4 that John and mum has sufficiently established themselves to have me stay with them.
At first, everything is great. I am very happy that I can finally be like the other kids and living with my parents. Understandably, mum is a bit overwhelmed as parenting is a whole new world for her. Although she stayed with my grandparents and I for the first few years of my life, a lot of her time went towards her university studies, so there are a lot of trial and error with her parenting style. This is also around the time when John got her to quit her job.
In the last 6 months of that year, John increasingly spent more time on business trip overseas. Then one day I woke up to a screaming match at around 05:00 AM in the morning. Mum has been suspicious for awhile about why John insists on keep going to his "business trips". She begged him to stop but he won't listen, and this is when I first learnt about John's infidelity. I was quite shocked as I always pictured my parents as those picture perfect happy family, and maybe that's why I don't remember much beyond that night.
We went to live overseas at the start of my year 5 to the country John always went to on his "business trips". I am sure at first it is all strictly actual business reason, so who knows when he picked up his side-chick. We were happy for awhile. During that time I am not sure if he has totally stopped seeing the side-chick or not, but arguments become increasingly frequent till the day we learnt that the side-chick is actually another employee in the company and has recently been terminated for sneaking another man to the company-provided female dormitory.
Things went on normally after that, but John has never stopped being stingy with us. He would get the taxi driver that we used frequently to give him extra receipts and stuff for him to file as travel expense to the company. We were given a certain budget for rental accommodation and I know for a fact that we were always way under the budget, but John would falsify invoices to make it look like we used up most (if not all) of the allowance. His reasoning is that we should save up so that we can buy our own place or whatever. Whenever we go out, he will pick the cheapest place to eat, stay, etc., and we hardly spend money on anything outside of the necessity (i.e., groceries).
Because of our lifestyle, my school life has been a nightmare. If you do not live in a certain part of the town, not caucasian, not wearing the "cool kids" brand, not having things like walkman/MP3 player, not wearing deodorant, or look anything out of the ordinary, you get ostracized. You get made fun of, get excluded, being the butt of jokes, etc. This went on for 3 years until we moved to another city. Am I frustrated? Very, but I figured at the time that if I can survive this, I will be fine regardless of where I go.
Same thing happened, as expected, in my new school, but this time I had practice, so I didn't care. The bullying isn't as prevalent in this new school and I started having a small group of friends, which then gradually included most of the Asian kids in the year. Arguably, being part of a group makes the less cool kid somewhat cool to some extent as we are generally smarter and perform better with our grades. At this point, I suppose I can say that I am happy. I have friends, and my parents seems to be getting along just fine.
Fast forward to high school graduation. I have applied to and was accepted by a university that is as far from my parent's place as possible. Mostly because I want to get away from John. He is the type of father that would sigh and look at you disapprovingly when he sees you on your computer playing a bit of games. As if he is so disappointed to have a kid that played computer games.
While I was away, John and his best friend Mike started a joint venture in our home country. They bought a plot of land in a rapidly developing place to build residential building to rent out. Outside of this, John has also climbed the corporate ladder to become one of the region's big honcho and by now, he owned about 3 properties that he is renting out so we were never affected much financially as he has his secret squirrel cash that we built up from living underbudget for the last 8 years.
Since I was away all those time, I only get scraps of information about the last 12 years of my family. Apparently at some point John sends my mum and sibling to live elsewhere to get a foreign citizenship so that we have a better future, better job opportunity, etc. He stayed alone back in the country where we previously were living in. Around the same time, the joint venture has accumulated enough money in the last few years for Mike, John, mum, and a few other friends to go travelling. Of course, John did not have to pay for a penny on the travel and accommodation cost because it is all the profit from the joint venture.
Things beyond this point are all allegedly what happened. On the way back from this trip, John went to get secretly married to his current mistress. Then he continued on as if nothing has happened. Mum once noticed that his wedding ring looks different and joked that he may have gotten secretly remarried but I don't recall seeing his response, which is odd. He bought a new luxury villa for the mistress along with a brand new BMW. He also bought each of her son a Mercedes and I can't remember if it is another BMW or what. He will take them all out for meals and holiday to places and shower them with luxury gifts. He even bought luxury bags for the mistress' sons' partners. Meanwhile, our house in the new country is falling into disrepair and he always say that he has no money to fix anything. I guess mum does not want to stress me out so she kept this a secret (about the fact that something is wrong with John).
After some digging around, I come across a few names of people to look into. There was this one particular lady that stood out from the rest, so I decided to add her on social media to see if there's anything off. A day later John called me asking me what I was doing. I was surprised as I hardly talked to John in the past 10 years unless during family visit. I told him the truth and that I was curious about this person, lets call her Karen. This was when he confessed to me that he has an affair outside and confessed that he bought her a luxury villa, etc.. Not going to lie, but I am shocked. How can he do this and then claim that he will still be responsible and take care of my mum and siblings when he has been very stingy with everything that involves money. He promised me that he will tell me more about Karen and will find a good time to talk to mum about this, so I promised him that till the day he confessed to mum, I won't meddle in his business. Maybe I am being selfish or stupid, but I know mum would know about Karen to certain degree due to John's history of infidelity. Who knows.

For context as to how badly he hamstrung mum financially, he will only give her a bit of cash to pay for my sister's extracurricular activities where the instructor wants to be paid in cash. Then he gave her a credit card for groceries, etc., but he will also lump all the utility bills, school tuition, etc., to that card, so it will frequently max out. Imagine how mum must feel when she goes to the doctor or get groceries only to find that her card has been declined. When she call him to try get him to help, he either won't answer or take a long time to answer, which brought mum to tears numerous time. Imagine the embarrassment that she has to endure in public places. Then he would constantly question the transactions on the credit card and constantly complained to outsiders and my grandparents that mum is spending too much and he cannot keep up. He won't even attend my sibilings' graduation. When my sister asked if she can go travelling with her high school friend before university starts, he said that he doesn't have the spare cash, but I found out that he has just been travelling with his mistress and I have the photo to prove it.

Mike knew what John did and chastised him for it, so they are no longer on speaking terms, which means the joint venture is kinda sitting in limbo. The agreement that they originally signed is quite loosely worded, which John used as an excuse to say that Mike has been plotting to devour his share of the business even before they embarked on this journey. Because of John's infidelity, Mike has been withholding the earnings from the joint venture because he knows that Karen is a golddigger. For context, allegedly Karen is one of those girls that sleeps around with rich people. They would even fly her out to see them. I spoke to John to ask him why don't he let me manage Mike because clearly they are no longer on talking terms and he has no leg to stand on to recoup his investment. Mike and I are on good terms, so if I can takeover, we can preserve our stake in the business. At the back of my mind I was preparing for the day when Karen drained every penny out of John. This way we have a leg to fallback on.
My lawyer friend suggested that I get John to agree to this in writing, which I would have done if I could, but looking back I feel that it may be going a bit too far and John might find this offensive, so I did not. 1 year later, Mike got me into the business and as soon as John found out, he came to see me and we have a screaming match in front of the grandparents. In his words "if you don't back out, it will get dirty" and "don't call me dad if you refuse to back out". My position is and always has been "help me to help you", we should be on the same side, so help me understand what is your plan because as soon as I burn this bridge with Mike, there is no going back. If the original signed agreement is too loosely worded that John has little ground to stand on, we will lose everything. When I say everything, it is not that much when converted to USD (probably around $220k).
John has been very well paid in his job and I have his bank statement to see that he gets annual bonus which is close to $100k USD on top of his salary, so he really has no need to go this far just for $200k when we will still be paid dividend if I manage it. Especially when this dividend money is to be set aside when the worst eventually happened. My only explanation is that John is being his usual self, a control freak that wants to control everything in our family life. Well, that's fine. Since the screaming match, I have gone no contact with him and has put the dividend payment aside in a savings account.

I know for certain that John is the one lying to me because he accused Mike of stealing people's money when he go into business with friends, which is why only John is willing to do business with him in this joint venture. Afterall they are best friends before John betrayed mum. I asked him to give me names of people Mike has swindled but he is unable to. He gave me the name of a person, so I reached out to that guy who strongly denied that Mike has stolen his money.
Recently, I have been advised that John has taken Mike to court. I am not sure on what grounds, but he got the police to call him in for an interview. He even dragged Mike's wife and family to the station by getting the police to summon them. Then after about 10 months of no contact, he called me through my grandfather's phone to try get me to go back home to testify against Mike. He said that if I trust him, he will even guide me on what to say. This does not sit well with me, not only that this is wrong to lie to the police, I will also be getting Mike in trouble for doing what he can to protect John's family and John's future. He even persuaded my grandfather, who is more of a father to me than John ever has been, to pressure me to do this. Grandpa's view is that we must side with our family no matter what. Family? Which side of the family are you referring to? Do I side with John and get Mike in trouble and forgo any hope of savings and retirement fund for my mum and potentially him? Or do I side with Mike who has gone through a lot of trouble for doing John's job of protecting John's family?
My mind is a mess and I am at loss. There are nuclear options that I can consider, i.e., report to the police that John is living with a woman that is not his wife, I can leak the story to the rest of the family and extended family, I can ruin John's reputation if I have to. I will go nuclear and report his behaviour to his company, which could mean that he would lose his job.
Things are a lot worst and there are a lot more things that I could have said, but I am trying to focus on the most important bits while giving some context instead of writing a novel on reddit. Anyone has a family as messed up as this? What should I do?